


Bipolar Opposites

by Anonymous_Introvert78



Series: GOT7 Hurt/Comfort [1]
Category: GOT7
Genre: Assault, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Here we go, Hospitals, Hurt Im Jaebum | JB, Hurt Kim Yugyeom, Hurt Mark Tuan, Hypothermia, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Kim Yugyeom-Centric, LET'S GET IT, Mania, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Motorcycles, Protective Hyungs, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-08-10 19:07:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 27,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20140486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous_Introvert78/pseuds/Anonymous_Introvert78
Summary: ***************"There's something wrong with you and you need help!"***************





	1. Kim Yugyeom

I’m writing a seven-part series! One for each member! (And yes, this is the last series that I’ll be doing because I know I’ve been promising a lot lately and I just hope I can deliver). This story will be out in a couple of days after I’ve finished posting “Kidney Privileges” which is a SEVENTEEN Woozi-Centric fic if you want to go and check that out.

**TRIGGER WARNING!!!!!!**

This fic contains possibly triggering content such as suicidal thoughts and suicidal ideation.

**DISCLAIMER!!!!!**

I also want to say that I know very, very little about Bipolar Disorder. I’ve done research but there will be massive inaccuracies and so I apologise for that. If anyone out there is living with this condition or knows someone who is then I want them to know that I write this story with the best of intentions. I do not wish to downplay the hardships these people go through but I hope to spread awareness and maybe eradicated a few misconceptions that some people may hold.

**There will be no major character death in this series**

** **


	2. Life Goes On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
"Winter Bear" by V (BTS)

MBC audiences weren’t that big. Probably round about a hundred people. But there were times when, for Yugyeom, he preferred them to packed arenas. 

There was just something about the way he could see every single face, even when the lights were flashing all around him and he was focusing on every step he made, that made him so unbelievably happy.

He felt like he could look into every pair of eyes, tell every soul without words that he loved them so much for taking time out of their days to come and wave their light stick around and shout his name to the beat of whatever song they managed to regurgitate.

And when the routine finished and the cameras turned off, he loved nothing more than to stand in the centre of the stage and wave with both hands, beaming bright as the sun as he tried to come up with original and ridiculous ways of making a heart with his arms and yelling “I love you!” at the top of his lungs.

It was moments like that where he was reminded why he had endured that hellish trainee period. It was to see those eyes shining back at him with a single sentiment stamped across their faces: _ We will support you until the very end. _

He stood at the very front of that stage with Jackson on his left and Youngjae on his right, the MCs just a few feet away, the cameras in front and all the cover artists behind and waited for the results to be announced. 

Five years he’d been doing this and he still got that tingling sensation in his gut before the winner was shouted out to half a hundred screaming fans. No matter how many times he had raised that trophy above his head, it still felt so good.

“And the winner is … Got7!”

Yep. So good.

They bowed, they clapped the commiserating artists, they thanked the MCs and made hearts at the cameras and then they got their hands on the microphones to make their final celebration speech before the encore.

“Ahgase, we love you!” Yugyeom yelled into the metal mesh pressed against his mouth, glorifying in the tumultuous applause from the audience. “Thank you so much! We worked really hard for this album and we promise to work even harder! This means so much! I feel like I couldn’t be happier!”

Jinyoung snatched the amplifier from his hand and made a highly-publicised comment about how cheesy and sentimental their maknae was before the music blasted through the speakers and they were contorting their bodies into some ridiculous moves for the encore performance.

And Yugyeom had told the truth. He couldn’t be happier. He was wondering if he had ever been this elated in his life. He had just won an award on national TV. He was with his best friends – his brothers – as they danced and screeched their hearts out to a song that he had helped produce. Life couldn’t be better.

That was why he was so hyperactive on the way back to the dressing rooms, holding onto Mark’s shoulders as he bounced up and down with strange cackling bird noises grating through his lungs in his joy. 

The makeup artist gave him a fondly exasperated look and he even threw her a wink. That was the extent of his happiness.

And then he saw them.

Two police officers with their hands folded solemnly in front of them as they turned to face the direction their manager was pointed in: him.

Yugyeom stopped so abruptly that Youngjae collided with him from behind but he barely even registered the contact. 

He could already feel the anxiety bubbling inside of him. Policemen had that kind of affect on people: fear. That’s what they were built for. Eliciting terror just with their mere presence.

But this was something else. It was the way they were looking at him, with sympathy and sadness and expressions that read, _ “We are about to say something that will turn your world upside down.” _

“Kim Yugyeom?” one of them asked and Yugyeom opened his mouth to respond but nothing came out. Instead, he just nodded. “Can we go somewhere more private? We have to speak with you.”

Their eyes flickered to his hyungs as they gathered behind him, asking silent questions of concern at the dramatic turn of events. But Yugyeom’s vocal chords seemed to have shrivelled into useless lumps of muscle in his throat, and all he could do was bob his head stupidly as he followed the officers out into the corridor.

Something had happened. He could feel it now. Something terrible had happened.

“Yugyeom-ssi,” the first officer began, and he removed his hat. A bad sign. A really bad sign. “I am very sorry to have to be the one to tell you this …”

Bad. Really bad. Really, really bad.

“But this morning, your parents were found deceased in their home.”

Blank. Blank. Blank. Blank. Blank. Bad. Blank. Bad. Blank. Blank. Blank. Blank. Bad.

“It seems that there was a carbon monoxide leak and seeing as it is a colourless and odourless gas, there would have been no way they could have detected it. They died in their sleep, Yugyeom-ssi. I really am very sorry but it is highly unlikely that they felt any pain.”

Blank. Blank. Bad. Blank. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Blank. Bad. Blank. Bad. Blank. Blank.

“Is there anyone that we can call for you, Yugyeom-ssi? Any other family members that need to be contacted?”

Somehow, Yugyeom managed to find his voice. Maybe it was the ice that was sliding down his throat that managed to dislodge whatever had paralysed his vocal chords.

“No,” he croaked, and he hated how gravelly he sounded. Like he had just woken up with the world’s worst hangover. “My family … What’s left of my family is in there.”

He jerked a finger towards the door they’d just come through and tried desperately not to think about what he had just said.

_ What’s left of my family. _

Because his parents were gone. His parents. The people who had soothed every nightmare, treated every fever, supported every dream, were now gone forever. His parents. Mom and Dad. Eomma and Appa. The most important people in his life.

“Gyeom?”

The voice was so soft and tentative that he didn’t register it until there were hands on his elbows and a face swimming in front of him. 

He fought to raise his head due to the weight it had suddenly garnered and his faded vision took several moments before it recognised Jaebeom in front of him, Bambam at his side.

“Let’s go home, huh, Gyeom?” the leader asked and Yugyeom felt the fingers on his sleeves beginning to gently pull him towards the door. “We’re all here with you. So let’s just go home.”

And Yugyeom laughed.

He didn’t know why. He didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him as his body seemed to be doing the exact opposite of what it was supposed to. 

He should be bawling. He should be curling up on the floor with his arms wrapped around his head and his nose spewing snot at an ungodly rate.

But he wasn’t doing any of that. He was laughing. It was a strangled, constricted sound but it was unmistakable as a gesture of mirth and there was no way that he missed the alarmed look that Bambam and Jaebeom exchanged in front of him, but he just didn’t care.

“Gyeom, let’s go home,” Bambam echoed, the apprehension evident in his tone as he added his own gentle coaxing to Jaebeom’s. “You need to sleep. So let’s just go home.”

“I’m fine!” Yugyeom chuckled, ripping his arm from their grip and stepping out of their reach as he regarded their terror with nothing but amusement coursing through him. “I’m absolutely fine.”

It just felt so funny. Ten minutes ago, he had never been happier. He had been the boy who was loved by millions. And included in those millions were two very, very special people that he knew would be there for ever and ever. And now they weren’t. Because of some stupid faulty gas pipe.

Wasn’t that just the funniest thing anyone had ever heard?

“Life keeps demanding to be lived, right?” he continued, grinning giddily back at them with his hands gesticulating wildly in front of him. “The world’s not going to stop turning just because my parents have croaked it.”

They flinched at his unfiltered brutality, but he didn’t see why. He was allowed to make these jokes and therefore, they were allowed to laugh because it was funny, right? It was so funny.

“Life goes on,” he muttered to himself as he pushed past them to get to the dressing room and gather his stuff. “Life goes on. Life goes on. Life goes on.”

But not for his parents.

And wasn’t that just hilarious?


	3. This Is Grief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
"119" by NCT Dream

“And now the Kim’s son, Yugyeom-ssi, is going to say a few words about his parents.”

Yugyeom heard the minister call his name out to the entire congregation, his voice bouncing satisfyingly off the walls with stunning acoustics, but he was too invested in wondering if maybe they should perform in a chapel.

It would sound incredible. Particularly “Miracle”. 

Or they could just record in one. Their voices would reverberate off each other to create one incredible meld of polyphonic harmonies and he was just starting to chastise himself for not bringing a notebook to write this genius idea down when he received a bony elbow to the ribs.

“What?” he hissed, irritated at the interruption of his internal monologue as he glared right back at Jinyoung with his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes narrowed. “What do you want?”

“You need to go to the front,” Jinyoung responded, slow and steady as though he were unsure about his words. As though he were frightened of something. He was ridiculous.

Yugyeom stared back at him with his mind whirring, trying to figure out what was going on before he registered every single face that was turned in his direction. Teary eyes were fixed on him with expectation in their gazes and he caught sight of the minister at the front of the pews who kept trying to subtly beckon him over.

“Oh, right,” he sighed, getting to his feet and climbing clumsily over Jinyoung to get to the aisle. “Let’s get this over with then.”

He didn’t understand why everyone was crying. There were so many incredible things in the world to behold in wonderous awe and all these pathetic sobbing wrecks were choking on their grief into bacteria-infested tissues. And why? People died every day. It was nothing new. And it’s not like he saw them very often anyway.

The carpet was springy under his feet as he strode up to the lectern and he took a moment to bounce interestedly on the velvet fibres before finally taking his place behind the wooden structure. He surveyed the sea of mourners in front of him and before he knew it, he was giggling.

He wasn’t laughing. He was giggling. An immature, childish chortle of mirth with his lips screwed shut in an attempt to silence himself because there was some part of him that knew he shouldn’t be doing such a thing but everyone in front of him just looked so … funny.

His members were in the second row, wide-eyed and mortified, and Jinyoung was already half out of his seat before Yugyeom gestured for him to sit back down.

“Don’t worry, hyung,” he called out over the tiny little whispers of confusion that rippled across the gallery like a gossiping ocean. “I’m doing it, I’m doing it.”

He shifted from one foot to the other, feeling like he wanted to run a mile or compete in a dance marathon, not stand at the front of a church and make up some pathetic garble about how much he loved his parents.

He didn’t see the point anyway. They couldn’t hear him. They didn’t care. They were dead.

He looked down and noticed a scorch mark blazoned on the front of the lectern, just above the place where the Bible sat in all its holy deity, and he was suddenly reminded of something.

“Did you know that my dad once threatened to set me on fire?” he announced to the room, the little gasps of horror only adding to his hilarity as he leapt into his story with a grin spread wide across his face and his arm wrapped around his stomach to contain his laughter.

“To be fair, he was in a really bad mood. He’d just spent several hours chugging whiskey down at the pub and then he’d lost about half his savings gambling on some crippled horse on the TV, and he came home and I told him I wanted a football shirt for my birthday. Pretty normal, right? Yeah, I thought so, too. And we ended up having this argument and – hey, Mark-hyung, can you find out what this carpet is made of?”

By now, the congregation was alive with mutters of poorly-concealed shock but Yugyeom was too invested in the incredibly satisfying way the surface beneath his shoes seemed to contract beneath his weight.

“It’s so cool. I think we should get some. Maybe we could put it in our room, right, Bam?”

He glanced up to meet Bambam’s eye and was instead met with Jaebeom, Jinyoung and Jackson – the three J’s … _ hey, that’s funny – _marching straight up the aisle towards him while the other three sat stock-still and stunned in the stalls.

“Hey, are you coming to join me?” Yugyeom cheered, reaching out to wrap his arm around Jaebeom's neck and pull him closer. “Everyone, you know my hyungs, right? They’re really cool. And this new album is … Oh, it’s fucking awesome! Jaebeom-hyung, you’re a genius, you know that, right?”

It was only then that he registered the grips that Jinyoung and Jaebeom had on his upper arms as they tugged him towards the side door with their faces flushed scarlet and their eyes downcast.

“Where are we going?” he asked bemusedly, just to be met with a glower from his leader.

“We’re leaving, Gyeom. Now move.”

Reasonably curious but suddenly fascinated with the stained glass panels above his head as he made a mental note to throw some dye over a window when he got home, Yugyeom let his hyungs drag him from the view of prying eyes.

Behind him, he could faintly hear Jackson addressing the room at large, saying something about the strange way grief affected some people. He thought it was funny. 

Everyone was saying he was supposed to be grieving, he was supposed to be sad and crying and curling up into a ball of unwashed depression, but truth be told, he’d never felt better.

“What are we doing?” he asked, wriggling free of his hyungs and turning around to face them. “I was giving my speech. What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with _ you _?” Jaebeom countered, angrily starting forwards before Jinyoung’s restraining hand appeared on his shoulder. “I mean, what the actual hell, Yugyeom? Why would you make such a joke out of your own parents’ funeral?”

Yugyeom stared back at him, blinking rapidly as his mind tried to process what the fuck his older brother was trying to say, before he noticed there was a table behind him. He hitched himself on top of it to sit on the edge, swinging his legs beneath him as he shrugged.

“I wasn’t making a joke. I was just … I just feel so … spectacular!” He made a few jazz hands for effect before he continued. “You know what I mean? I don’t feel sad at all. I feel … I feel great. I don’t think I’ve ever felt greater.”

And it was true. He was buzzing. Literally. His fingers and toes were tingling and his stomach was flipping and he just wanted to jump up and down as he belted out his favourite songs at the top of his lungs. 

Couldn’t he just skip the whole grieving part and get to the recovery? He couldn’t be bothered to be sad. He wanted to be happy.

His hyungs were whispering, right in front of him, as though he wasn’t sitting a mere three feet away but he was too disinterested to care. The world was an oyster and he was wasting it in this tiny little prayer room with the dusky shadows and dusty shelves. There were so many things that he could do. So many things he could be.

Why not start right now?

But Jaebeom had other ideas.

“Let’s go home,” he decided, refastening a grip around his maknae’s upper arm as he yanked him off the table with slightly unnecessary force. “We need to get you out of the public eye until you’ve had a chance to sober up from whatever you’ve taken.”

A week ago, such a statement would have offended Yugyeom to the core. For his older brother to insinuate that he was using drugs was preposterous. But now it just made him laugh. Everything made him laugh. It felt amazing.

And that was good. Right? 

*******************

Jaebeom and Mark were sitting in the very back of the company car as their manager drove them home, watching Yugyeom positively bouncing in the seat in front of them as he spoke at the speed of light, babbling on and on about something do to with stained glass windows that none of them seemed to understand.

They had left the funeral early, something that was not only humiliating and insensitive but made them feel incredibly guilty and apologetic for tarnishing the memory of their maknae’s parents. But Yugyeom was acting too … wrong for them to stay any longer.

“Am I the only one who’s slightly scared?” Mark whispered and Jaebeom raised his head to meet his eye, brows furrowed in concern as Yugyeom suddenly let out the loudest cackle any of them had ever heard him make. “Make that very scared.”

“No,” Jaebeom murmured back, slowly shaking his head. “You’re not the only one at all.”

They watched for a few more moments, wincing as Bambam seemed to shrink away from his best friend such was the intensity of the energy that reverberated off the youngest’s body, and when Jaebeom spoke next, he couldn’t help the slight tremor in his voice.

“This is grief, right?” he asked, almost imploring his hyung to agree with him. “I mean, this is just some really messed up grieving process, isn’t it?”

Mark didn’t answer. Because both of them knew it wasn’t. 


	4. Scarier, Not Scariest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
"Love Is" by Teen Top

It got scarier.

Mark was convinced that as long as they gave Yugyeom the space he needed to accept the tragedy that should have flattened him into the ground, he would eventually start undergoing the more … traditional grieving process. But he didn’t.

And when he and Jackson tried to sit him down for a serious conversation, it got the scariest that it had ever been before. 

But not the scariest that it would ever be in the future.

“Hey, Gyeom,” Jackson started as he sidled into the living room to join Mark on the sofa, watching as Yugyeom invested every single ounce of attention in his incredibly hyperactive body into the video game he was playing. “Can you put the Wii remote down for a bit?”

“Don’t want to!” Yugyeom called out over the game’s jaunty and jovial music accompaniment, slightly breathless from the way he was sprinting on the spot with his arms pumping at his sides and his eyes fixated on the increasing score in the corner of the screen. “Grab one and come play with me!”

Mark opened his mouth to retort but Jackson skipped the pointless parental persuasion by simply turning the television off completely. 

Yugyeom took a moment to stare blankly at the blackened screen before turning to them with his brow furrowed and his lips stuck out in an ever-so-slight pout of disapproval.

“I was enjoying that,” he huffed and Mark couldn’t help but shuffle uncomfortably on the couch.

There was something very wrong here. He couldn’t quite tell what it was or whether it was as dangerous as his instincts were telling him, but he was almost certain that none of this was normal. Nobody acted like this and didn’t have a problem. It just wasn’t right.

“Gyeom, can we talk to you for a moment?” Jackson posed cautiously and Yugyeom gave a dramatic sigh before leaping onto the armchair and perching on its back with his fingers drumming on his knees and his feet tapping on the cushions.

“Sure,” he chirped. “What do you need?”

Mark glanced at his equally-concerned friend and shifted towards the edge of the sofa a little more in an attempt to shake off the nasty tingling feeling pricking at his skin every time Yugyeom looked at him with those bug eyes and fidgeting fingers.

“We just wanted,” he started slowly, trying to find the right words and failing miserably. “To let you know that we understand what it feels like to … to miss your parents. Jackson and I live in different countries to ours and I’m sure you could talk to Bambam as well seeing as his dad … you know …”

He petered off, glancing to Jackson for help and thanking the stars when his dongsaeng interjected his own contribution.

“We just want to make sure you know that you’re not alone, Gyeom, okay? You can talk to one of us whenever you need. We’re always here, you know that, right?”

Yugyeom stared at them for a split second, and for the briefest fraction of time, Mark thought they might have gotten through, but then their maknae threw back his head and laughed at them. 

Such was his hysteria that he actually toppled off the back of the chair, clutching his stomach and rolling around on the floor, cackling maniacally as his hyungs just watched in horror.

“Oh …” Yugyeom sighed as his eerie euphoria finally died away and he forced himself into a sitting position with a grunt. “That’s great. Thanks, hyung. I needed that.”

He wiped a single tear from his eye and grabbed hold of the coffee table to help lever him to his feet.

“Was that all you wanted to say?”

Mark gaped at him, strongly resisting the urge to get up and run straight out the front door to get away from whatever psychotic break his dongsaeng seemed to be having, but somehow he managed to choke out the words, “Yeah, that was it.”

“Great,” Yugyeom piped as he retrieved the TV remote from the arm of the couch beside Mark and returned to his Wii game. “Care to join me?”

“No, thanks, Gyeom,” Jackson replied instantly, and even though Mark could hear the forced cheeriness in his tone, Yugyeom apparently couldn’t. “We’re good.”

He seized a grip on the eldest’s sweater and dragged him into the kitchen where Jinyoung was making coffee. The boy looked up upon their arrival, innocently inquisitive gaze instantly turning into dread as he registered how shaken the two of them looked.

“What’s happened?”

“Something’s really wrong,” Jackson mumbled, quiet and low as though Yugyeom would somehow be able to hear them over the ruckus he was making with his video games. “Like really, really wrong and I don’t know what it is.”

“And I hate myself for it,” Mark started, holding up his hands in surrender. “I really do, but there's some part of me that wants to stay away from him.”

He expected some hiss of humorous exasperation and an instant shoot down from either or both of the two people in the room with him but the only thing he saw when he looked at them was painful understanding. 

Yugyeom was a loose cannon. He was grieving in some incredibly unhealthy way and therefore they couldn't let their guard down. Not for a second. Both for their sakes and for his. 

“Jaebeom's talking with the managers about getting us some more time off,” Jinyoung said as he filled the three mugs to the brim and dolled them out to his hyungs. “But considering we just had a comeback and we've already been AWOL for three weeks, it looks like we're going to have to attend at least one interview to make sure the fans don't start talking.”

There were several long drones of virtual silence - Yugyeom's game was still in full swing and he showed no sign of tiring anytime soon - before Jackson spoke up. 

“Do you think he'll be okay?”

“As long as we keep an eye on him,” Mark hummed but anyone could have heard the uncertainty in his tone as he held his coffee mug right up to his face with both hands. “We'll see what Jaebeom says when he comes home but I think we should contact a grief counsellor.”

From the living room, Yugyeom let out a screech of triumph as the celebratory music started oozing from the speakers and Mark actually flinched. 

It would have to be some grief counsellor. 

**Any hateful comments directed towards me or any of my readers will be deleted immediately**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I know this is kind of short but I am currently in possession of a horrible cold so my writing ability is limited. Please forgive me and I promise the next chapter will be longer


	5. Denver Reincarnate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation  
"Summer Time" by The Boyz

Yugyeom felt spectacular.

No, more than that. He felt _ spectacular. _He felt like he could lift a building, do backflips across the Han River and walk on water, for that matter.

He felt like he could do anything and everything, and it was because of that that he couldn't understand why everybody was treating him as if he had just escaped a psychiatric facility.

They were already in their seats, makeup artists and hair stylists applying the finishing touches to their flawless faces and outstanding outfits – see, alliteration, _ SPECTACULAR _ – as the cameras were prepared and the hyungs exchanged whispered words with their manager.

The tiny little woman trying to smooth the peaks in his scruffy hair kept telling him to sit still but he couldn’t. And he told her that.

“I just can’t, Noona,” he buzzed, shuffling in his seat for the umpteenth time as he waved his hands around in a pathetic attempt to get rid of at least some of the energy burning at his bones. “I haven’t done an interview in forever.”

He spotted the way Jaebeom kept glancing over at him, brow furrowed in concern as he and their manager discussed whatever problem they were facing in hushed tones. But he didn’t care.

He was on top of the world.

No, on top of the _ universe. _

He couldn’t climb any higher and the only thing that threatened to bring him down was knowing that nobody seemed to accept that he really was okay. 

Sure, his parents weren’t around anymore but that was okay. He was dealing with it and even if he did say so himself, he’d never heard of anybody with a healthier coping mechanism.

He was just … so … He was just so happy.

“Okay, cameras rolling! Standby!”

Jaebeom was ushered back to his seat, the interviewer took his place in front of the seven of them and Yugyeom felt his entire body tingling with excitement as the crew fell silent and the director held up a signalling hand.

He loved interviews. He loved everything about them. They were always so much fun. And he loved having fun.

So he answered every single question, talking at double his normal speed because he just had so much to say and he wanted to tell these people in front of him. 

He wanted to share his ideas and his hopes and dreams and it didn’t matter that he was barely letting the others talk because he couldn’t stand the thought of anyone thinking he wasn’t absolutely ecstatic.

Youngjae kept squeezing his thigh as though he was trying to tell him something and Jaebeom kept trying to cut him off mid-speech but he ploughed right through.

He ignored them. 

Because they didn’t understand.

He just had to share everything that was filtering through his mind.

And then he suddenly remembered something, halfway through a detailed description of all the choreography ideas that had contributed to their new songs, and of course, he just had to tell everyone all about it.

“Did you know something?” he babbled, grinning from ear to ear as the interviewer inclined his head in order to indicate he could continue. 

He liked this interviewer. He wasn’t looking at him like he was a timebomb about to explode like all of his members were. 

“John Denver – you know the John Denver who wrote all those songs? You know … _ I’m leaving on a jet plane … _That one, you know? Yeah. Well, I found out the other day that he died in 1997 which is, like, sad and shit but, like, I was born in 1997!”

He paused for dramatic effect, completely oblivious to Jinyoung signalling their manager from behind the cameras.

“And I think that I might be the reincarnation of John Denver! I mean, think about it. I’m a musician and … and … Well, I’m a musician so we’ve got that in common. And I’ve just got these … these memories of, like, a plane … and you know that Denver died in a plane crash so I realised that it must be … like … residual memories from my past life. You know what I mean? And I just know inside me that I’m _ him. _I’m John Denver and I think that’s …”

“Turn the cameras off!”

Yugyeom was so shocked by such a loud interruption that he sputtered into complete silence, his leg continuing to jiggle spastically, and he stared at Jaebeom with an expression that he hoped conveyed his hurt and betrayal.

But his leader wasn’t watching. His leader had leapt to his feet and was striding towards the cameras, holding out his hands as though he could shield a dozen lenses all at once and repeating the same words over and over again.

“I said turn the cameras off! Do it now! Turn them off!”

The interviewer looked like they were speaking a different language, such was the confusion – and maybe a slight hint of apprehension – at the behaviour he was witnessing right in front of him.

Of the maknae that seemed to have a chronic case of verbal diarrhoea and appeared to be under the impression that he was the reborn version of an American songwriter.

“What’s going on?” Yugyeom asked, turning to Bambam and Youngjae with his brows furrowed. “What’s happened?”

But before either of his fellow maknaes could answer the question, Jackson and Jinyoung were on either side of him.

Their fingers clenched iron tight vices around his upper arms and for the second time in six weeks, he found himself being dragged roughly from the room.

“What’s happened?” he repeated in confusion as he flopped down on the waiting room sofa with his hyungs and manager staring down at him with mixtures of fury and fear written all over their pale faces. “What’s the matter?”

“Yugyeom, what’s wrong with you?” their manager finally broke the silence and Yugyeom blinked cluelessly back at him.

“What do you mean?” he inquired, tilting his head to the side slightly as he resisted the urge to get up and do three hundred jumping jacks. He felt like now would be a bad time. “I feel great, hyung. I feel … spectacular!”

“Yugyeom,” Mark started, crouching down in front of the youngest and reaching for the hands that were fidgeting hyperactively in his lap. “We’re worried about you. We think that you … We think that you might need to see a therapist.”

Yugyeom snorted. “Why the hell would I need to do that? I’ve never needed a therapist less! I feel …”

“Yes, we know,” Mark interrupted harshly, frustration evident behind his tone as he gave Yugyeom’s hands an exasperated squeeze. “You feel spectacular. But I think you need just a little bit of advice to help you cope with what happened to your parents.”

Now Yugyeom was the one who was frustrated, pulling his fingers from Mark’s grip and straightening up so suddenly at the eldest had to leap back from the sofa to avoid being headbutted.

“What part of ‘I’m fine’ don’t you people get?” he shouted, throwing his hands up in the air. “I dealt with what happened and I’m fine! I’ve actually never felt better! I’ve got so many new ideas and thoughts for our next album and if I’m being too hyper for you then that’s fine, but don’t tell me I need to see a therapist just because I’m not wallowing in a pit of depression.”

“Do you really think you’re the reincarnation of John Denver?” Bambam asked, so quietly that he almost went unheard from where he was hiding in the corner, arms folded protectively over his chest and back pressed into the wall.

All eyes turned on him, wide and surprised. They were all thinking the same thing, they just hadn’t expected Bambam would be the one to voice it. Especially seeing as he was the person who seemed to be the worst affected by his best friend’s sudden personality transplant.

“Do you really think that, Gyeom?”

Yugyeom gawped at each of them in turn, unable to believe they were being so narrowminded in their refusal to comprehend how incredible a turn his life was taking.

“Well …” he started, smirking in ever-so-slight amusement. “Yeah. Think about it. It makes perfect sense.”

“No!” Bambam shouted, and Yugyeom was surprised to hear a stroke of emotion in his voice as he pushed off the wall and stormed forwards. “It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever!”

Yugyeom was speechless.

He couldn’t even find it in himself to fidget, such was the depth of his stunned stupor.

“This isn’t right!” Bambam kept yelling, not advancing towards the youngest but not retreating either as he stood in the middle, conflicted and frustrated and above all, frightened. “There’s something wrong with you, Yugyeom, and you need help!”

“That’s enough,” Jackson murmured, his arm snaking around Bambam’s shoulders and pulling him backwards a few feet in the hopes it would diffuse whatever standoff was happening here.

There were a few more moments of silence, broken only by Bambam’s attempts to catch his breath and Yugyeom’s feet tapping nervously against the floor. 

For the first time in what felt like forever, there was a chink in that suit of armoured happiness he’d been wearing. And he didn’t like it.

“I’m going to make you an appointment with a psychiatrist,” the manager suddenly cut in.

No one was looking up from the floor.

“And you’re going to go, Yugyeom, or I will suspend you from this group.”

He didn’t like it one bit. 


	6. Motorbike

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
"End To Start" by NCT 127

“Hyung?”

Jaebeom gave a hum of acknowledgement without shifting his gaze from the papers strewn messily across his desk, barely illuminated by the lamp hanging over him and only just readable due to the glasses that kept threatening to slide off his nose.

“Can I talk to you about something?”

At that, the leader raised his head, sensing the distress in Youngjae’s voice and pushed back in his chair, beckoning the younger boy further inside.

“Sure.” 

He gestured towards the bed, resting his elbows on his knees and pulling off his glasses to give Youngjae his full attention as the kid perched nervously on the edge of the mattress, his fingers picking at themselves in his lap. 

“What’s up?”

“I …” Youngjae started, biting down on his lip with his brow furrowed, as though he was afraid to spill his thoughts. “I did some research on … on, erm … symptoms that Gyeom has.”

Jaebeom tensed, his back straightening instinctively before he realised his change in posture wasn’t helping Youngjae’s confidence and tried to return to an inviting image that would urge his dongsaeng to continue. 

But he couldn’t stop the anxiety burrowing into his gut at the thought of what Youngjae might have found.

“Did you Google?” he asked, mouth forcing itself into what he hoped was an amused smirk. “Because you know that Google can spew some shit, right?”

Youngjae nodded, trying to return the smile and failing miserably. “I know, but some of the stuff I found … it kind of makes sense.”

“Okay,” Jaebeom hummed, resisting the urge to pick obsessively at a loose thread on his jeans. “That’s fine, Youngjae, but … Remember that Yugyeom just went through something awful, yeah? And people can deal with stuff in some really messed up ways so I know he’s struggling with something but the internet can twist stuff.”

He was rambling now, initially trying to soothe Youngjae’s anxiety but only succeeding in increasing his own.

“I’m sorry,” he apologised. “Show me what you’ve found.”

Youngjae wriggled his phone from his jeans pocket but before he even had a chance to turn the device on, there was a yell from the living room. 

It wasn’t fearful – not quite – but it was definitely alarmed. And Jaebeom knew something was wrong.

“JAEBEOM!”

Both leader and dongsaeng scrambled to their feet, bolting for the exit and sprinting down the corridor to skid to a stop in the living room. 

The front door was wide open, Jinyoung framed in the threshold as he stared at something down in the road.

At the sound of his members’ arrival, he looked up and Jaebeom saw the way his best friend’s fists were clenched and his jaw was clamped and his body language just screamed,  _ You’ll never guess what's happened. _

There was shouting from outside and as Jaebeom reached the garden path, he felt his stomach flip its entire contents in a cruel washing machine cycle of bile and barely-digested food, and his jaw hit the floor.

Jackson and Mark were shouting, and it was clear from their tones that they were livid. Bambam was hanging back by a few feet, stock still and stunned, as he watched the scene that was playing out before him with some sick sense of fascination.

Yugyeom had a motorbike.

It was a beast of a thing, sleek and metallic and monstrous-looking, a dangerous black colour and a bulk that clearly said,  _ I could kill you in three seconds flat but that won’t stop you from loving the hell out of me. _

The youngest was perched on its back, his face split in a delirious kind of grin as he wrenched the helmet off his head and gave his hair a satisfied flick. He looked happy. So heartbreakingly happy. But at the same time, Jaebeom wished he would be crying.

Jaebeom wished that his maknae would have just acted like a normal son grieving for his parents after they were snatched too soon from a world that had failed them. 

He wished the kid would have curled up in bed with the curtains closed and the shower going mouldy from lack of use as he spiralled into a chasm of depression.

Because Jaebeom knew how to deal with that. He knew depression all too well and how to comfort and rehabilitate those who were wrapped in its tentacles. 

But this … This he neither understood nor recognised. He had never seen anyone act like it and now danger was staring him right in the face.

“Yugyeom, what the hell?” he bellowed, closing the distance between him and the maknae with his bare feet scraping painfully on the cobbles and the cold wind nipping mercilessly at the back of his neck. “What did you do?”

“I bought a motorbike, hyung!” Yugyeom responded proudly, gesturing towards the stormy steed he straddled with a triumphant grin plastered over his reddened face. “I’ve always wanted one and I saw it was for sale … so I thought why not?”

Jaebeom was lost for words.

“This … This … These are dangerous!” he finally settled on, glaring at the automobile as though it might suddenly explode and take them all with it to a fiery death. “Do you even have a license?”

“Nope. But I can get one.”

“You didn't even go to the psychiatrist appointment, did you?” Jinyoung interjected and Jaebeom noticed for the first time that he and Youngjae had joined them at the foot of the garden. “That’s where you were supposed to be, not wasting half a year’s salary on something that will just leave you splattered up and down some motorway.”

Yugyeom let out a sound halfway between a snort of mirth and a sigh of exasperation as he shook his head. Like a parent fondly chastising a petulant child. And Jaebeom saw how angry that made Jinyoung.

“I didn’t go to the appointment because I don’t need it. I’m fine. I’m more than fine and now I’ve got one of these things,” he gave the bike a jovial pat on its shiny flank, smiling down at it like it was his firstborn son. “You have no idea how amazing it feels to ride one. I could take one of you right now. I’ve got a spare helmet.”

“Yugyeom, what the fuck!” Jinyoung practically screamed, truly on the verge of breaking point. The pure ferocity behind his tone was enough to make Youngjae, Bambam and even Mark flinch a little but Yugyeom was fearless. Completely fearless.

“Hey, Bam, come ride it with me!” he cried out, ignoring Jinyoung as he held up the spare helmet and beckoned Bambam forward. “You’re going to love it so much. It feels just like flying.”

Bambam had never looked so conflicted. Jaebeom knew the kid wanted to ride a motorbike, he had ever since he was a child, but he was clearly afraid of his best friend’s mental state and capability to drive a vehicle he hadn’t even learned how to operate properly.

He took a tentative step forwards but Jackson’s hand closed around his wrist.

“No,” the elder whispered, shaking his head. “Don’t go. He’s not in his right mind.”

Jaebeom took full advantage of Yugyeom’s momentary distraction to reach forwards and pluck the keys from the ignition, shutting off the engine with a pathetic sputter of the exhaust pipe.

“What the hell are you doing?” Yugyeom yelled, and now every trace of that blistering euphoria was gone. “Give them back!”

Jaebeom retreated, pocketing the ring of metal teeth and shaking his head decisively, asserting his authority. 

“You’re not driving that thing, Gyeom. It’s not safe.”

What followed next was the most terrifying forty-five seconds of Im Jaebeom's life. 

It wasn’t so much the trauma and the pain that froze him to the core and left him suffering the most horrific nightmares for weeks to come, but it was the fact that his little brother – the person he had taught to shave when he was barely halfway through his teens – had been the one to cause it.

Yugyeom leapt off the bike with a snarl of fury that didn’t even falter when Jaebeom’s eyes widened with fright and his feet scuffled on the garden path in his attempt to escape, and the next thing he knew, there were hands clasped around his throat.

The breath was knocked out of him with the force of a speeding train as the two of them thudded to the floor, Yugyeom sitting astride his fallen leader with his fists raining punch after punch after punch.

There were screams, a shouted call to the police and an ambulance, hands that Jaebeom couldn’t identify and didn’t want to because the only thing he could feel was his baby’s knuckles on his cheek, his jaw, his chest, his stomach, his ribs, everywhere.

He couldn’t breathe. His vision was fading in and out. Lights were popping. Muscles were straining. Bones were breaking. Bruises were already blossoming and by the time somebody finally managed to pull his attacker away, Jaebeom no longer knew who or where he was.

There were familiar faces above him, hands cupping his head and terrified voices telling him not to move. Something warm and sticky was splattered across his skin and it felt as if every single inch of his battered body was blackened and blue.

“Stay awake, Jae,” he heard over the sound of sirens. “You’re okay. Just stay awake. Help’s here. You’re okay.”

The darkness was coming for him. He could feel it clawing at the corners of his vision and the eyes staring down at him were growing in diameter, the mouth was moving faster, but Jaebeom was too tired to listen to it.

“Stay awake, Jae! Stay awake, please!”

The last thing he remembered before unconsciousness claimed him was the sight of Yugyeom’s infuriated snarl as the hands he used to hold out of love and affection shattered his bones. 


	7. Utterly Battered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING!!!  
This chapter contains potentially triggering content such as mentions of past suicidal thoughts. Please be careful when reading if you think this subject may be upsetting for you. 
> 
> Song Recommendation:  
"Symptoms" by K.Will

Yugyeom knew they’d sedated him. 

He could tell by the way his limbs felt like they were packed with iron weights as he lay on his side in the hospital bed, staring blankly at the clock on the bedside table. 

His head felt fuzzy and all his thoughts were reverberating around inside his skull, unsure where to go and how to make him feel.

The police officer had taken the handcuffs off him about an hour ago and he was thankful both for the lack of the metal chain securing him to the bed railing and the lack of the 250-pound security guard glaring at him from the corner.

But he knew that didn’t mean he was out of trouble. Maybe his hyungs had called the law off his ass but his own conscience was already giving him the harshest of trials, and the sentence kept climbing.

He had attacked Jaebeom. His leader. His big brother. He had pinned him to the ground and beaten him to a pulp. 

He could still remember the feel of his hyung’s blood on his knuckles, the bones caving in underneath his skin, the swelling that had puffed the boy’s face up like a balloon.

He’d done that. And now he didn’t know if his leader was dead or alive, paralysed or blind, breathing or on life support. 

He knew nothing because not a single one of his members had dared step foot inside this room they’d carted him off to after he was pumped full of tranquilisers and read his Miranda rights. 

They probably never wanted to see him again. He understood. He didn’t want to see himself either. That meant his career was over. The media would get wind of what had happened and his name would be mud by morning. The fans would hate him, his members would turn their backs, the company would kick him out. He would be nothing.

And he knew that it was exactly what he deserved.

What was the point of anything if he had to live with the knowledge that he had pummelled Jaebeom until his hyung had passed out in Mark’s arms? He might as well just let the police take him and throw him into a padded room, because he had to accept that something was wrong with him.

He had never been a violent person. Hurting Jaebeom … That was something the old him never would have done. Never. Not in a million years. Not with a gun to his head would he ever lay a finger on one of his hyungs. 

But he had, and there had been no barrel pressed up against his temple. He had committed a vicious and potentially life-threatening assault completely of his own volition.

He was a monster. He was a mentally unstable monster and if any of his members ever glanced at him again, it would be ten years too soon. He didn’t even deserve their spit in his face. 

He might as well open up that window right in front of him and throw himself out into the car park far below.

Maybe then he would feel what Jaebeom felt: bones crunching underneath broken skin and a blinding agony before darkness claimed him as its own.

The door opened and he wanted to sit up, scramble off the bed and drop to the floor in a full bow of apology – no matter who it was who walked in – but the drugs were still dominating his neurological impulses and all he found himself capable of doing was raising his head half an inch off the pillow.

It was a woman, white-coated and kind-looking, with a clipboard in her young fingers and a pretty smile on her face. Very pretty. She looked too perfect to be assigned to somebody as repulsive as him. 

And trailing behind her, eyes focused on the floor and hands shoved firmly into the pockets of an oversized tracksuit, was Jackson.

“Hyung?” Yugyeom whispered, wincing at the hoarseness of his voice and the way Jackson seemed to wrinkle his nose at the use of the familiar nickname. “How’s Jaebeom-hyung? Is he okay? Is he … Is he hurt bad?”

The woman lowered herself into a chair beside the bed, gesturing for Jackson to do the same. For a few moments, no one spoke and the only sound was the pen that danced gracefully over the doctor’s clipboard as she prepared to make whatever diagnosis he had. 

Jackson still wasn’t looking up.

“Hyung, please,” Yugyeom begged, feeling the burning sensation of tears in his eyes. “Tell me he’s okay.”

At the sound of the hitch in his maknae’s breath, however, Jackson raised his head like a mother tuned in to the cries of her child. Yugyeom knew his hyung was far too kind to ever be able to resist anyone when they were upset, and it only made him feel guiltier.

“He’s alive,” Jackson supplied bluntly, but his voice seemed to have come out harsher than he’d intended because it softened as he continued. “Broken nose, cracked ribs, bruising to the abdomen, hairline fracture of the cheekbone. He’s battered, Yugyeom, completely and utterly battered but he’s going to be fine.”

Yugyeom wiped at the tears rolling down his nose. He didn’t have the right to cry, not even if it was in relief for his hyung’s safety. 

He’d broken his bones. His nose, his ribs, his fucking skull. With his own hands he had crunched the strongest part of the human body. It was disgusting.

But before he’d come up with something appropriately apologetic, the doctor spoke up.

“Mr Kim, my name is Dr Kang, and I’m a psychiatrist with this hospital.”

Yugyeom’s stomach twisted painfully. A psychiatrist. They were practically screaming it at him, rubbing it in his face: PSYCHO. But he nodded anyway because he knew that he was no longer worthy of making his own decisions.

“Is it okay if I ask you a few questions to try and find out why the incident today occurred?”

Yugyeom nodded again.

“Are you happy for Mr Wang to stay with you?”

Jackson caught Yugyeom’s eye, and although there was mistrust and betrayal and disappointment within the inky wells, there was also an element of understanding. As though he were telling the youngest that it was his choice.

“I want you to stay,” Yugyeom whispered, sighing in relief when Jackson nodded his consent.

“Okay,” Dr Kang started, glancing briefly down at her notes before she looked back up. “I heard that recently you’ve been experiencing very high levels of energy, Mr Kim. And you’ve been feeling particularly positive, smiling often, laughing frequently and repeatedly saying that you feel ‘spectacular’. Is this correct?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And when did these feelings start?”

“After my parents died.”

The moment the words were out of his mouth, he felt like he’d been hit by a train. The agony that washed over him compared to none other and he found himself clapping his hands to his face as he sobbed into his snotty fingers with shameless audibility.

His parents were dead. They had died. They were gone. He was never going to see them again and the one chance he’d had to say goodbye he had completely fucked up. He had practically spat on their graves as he … malfunctioned or whatever it was at their funeral. 

He hadn’t visited them once, he hadn’t made a single prayer to Heaven, hadn’t asked God if he was looking after the most important people in his life.

He was a horrible son.

“Mr Kim, are you alright to continue?”

He nodded through his tears, registering for the first time that Jackson’s hand was on his leg, a thumb gently stroking back and forth over the dirt-splattered denim. 

It gave him strength. It told him that he was going to be okay, even if he was going to hell for the rest of eternity.

“Have you experienced any feelings of empowerment? Such as believing you’re able to do things that you wouldn’t normally be able to do? An example could be thinking that you can fly or that you have some special ability?”

Yugyeom was shaking so hard that he couldn’t get his tongue to cooperate. So Jackson did it for him.

“He hasn’t been sleeping,” the older boy reported, stone-faced and level-headed despite his exterior failing to conceal the fact that he looked like he wanted to cry. “He’s always happy. This is the first time I’ve seen him not smiling since he found out his parents were gone. He’s always distracted, always fidgeting and he talks at the speed of light.”

Yugyeom knew it was all true, everything his hyung was saying, but hearing the words for himself felt like betrayal. Like his hyung was throwing him under some metaphorical white-coated bus.

“He’s always coming up with these insane ideas,” Jackson continued, oblivious to Yugyeom’s internal monologue. “First he wanted to put down a new carpet, then he wanted to paint all the rooms … He thought he was the reincarnation of John Denver.”

It was so fucking stupid.  _ He  _ was so fucking stupid. Just that simple sentence –  _ he thought he was the reincarnation of John Denver –  _ made him want to be sick. How could he ever have believed something so ludicrous? How delusional was he?

“And he bought this motorbike, completely out of the blue. He doesn’t have a license, he’s never even sat on one before but for some reason, he just came home with it. He tried to take one of our younger members and Jaebeom confiscated his keys. That was when … it happened.”

And the interrogation went on and on. It felt like it never ended. The questions were repetitive and boring and Yugyeom somehow managed to find himself choking out a few answers that Jackson couldn’t fill in for him.

Dr Kang asked if he’d ever been depressed, and he’d actually laughed. He was an idol. Of course he had been depressed. It was practically written in the fine print of his contract. She asked if he’d ever considered suicide, and his response actually brought Jackson to tears.

Yes. He had. Only once as a trainee when he’d truly thought there was no future ahead of him and everything was going to shit. 

But the doctor seemed to be lapping it all up, nodding to herself as she made her little scribbles and finally, after what felt like hours of mindless inspection, he watched her write down a single word and circle it twice.

“Okay, Mr Kim,” she said as she looked up at him. “I think I have a diagnosis.” 

That was the first time Yugyeom heard the word ‘bipolar’.


	8. Alone And Unwanted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
"Spring Snow" by Pentagon

_ Good evening. This is JYP Entertainment. _

_ We are afraid to share some bad news regarding one of our idol groups. Due to the health of Got7’s youngest member, Yugyeom, we have decided to withdraw the group from their schedules for the following six weeks. We are sorry for the sudden announcement but please understand that we have our artist’s best interests at heart. _

_ Thank you. _

Yugyeom wouldn’t have eaten a single bite if Jinyoung hadn’t forced him into a chair and threatened to shave his head unless he finished the bowl of stew that was shoved under his nose. 

It smelled amazing, the steamy aroma wafting up his nose, and he wanted nothing more than to grab for the chopsticks and fill his growling stomach.

But he couldn’t. His insides were twisting at the mere thought of rewarding himself with something so satisfyingly delicious and ever since he’d returned from the hospital, food just hadn’t tasted the same. 

Mark said it was the depression that had taken his appetite and shrivelled it into the size of a pumpkin seed, but Yugyeom didn’t care.

He hated himself too much to eat.

Every time he rose each morning and saw Bambam’s empty bed, he remembered that his best friend had moved in with Youngjae because the hyungs had been too scared to leave them alone.

Every time he looked in the mirror, he was reminded that his face was the last thing Jaebeom saw before he succumbed to a bloody, concussed unconsciousness as Yugyeom himself was pinned to the pavement by a police officer, wrists cuffed behind his back.

And every time he glanced down at his own hands, he saw the blackened, misshapen knuckles that had been used to crack Jaebeom’s skull. He had stopped taking the painkillers for that particular injury just so he could feel he was doing some kind of penance.

So yeah, he hated himself too much to eat.

“I meant it,” Jinyoung warned without turning around from where he was stacking the dishes. “I will shave your head if you don’t finish that bowl. You’ve barely eaten in a week and you look half dead.”

Yugyeom felt it, too. He felt like there was literally no point to life if he wasn’t allowed to interact with Youngjae or Bambam, if he had to be supervised while he took his medication and frogmarched to therapist appointments three times a week. It would have suited him perfectly if he could have just curled up in bed and died of starvation.

But he couldn’t stand the thought of disappointing his hyungs anymore than he already had. 

So he pinched the chopsticks between trembling fingers and transferred a sweet-smelling pork chunk into his parched mouth. It tasted incredible, but the sensation of the sauce melting on his tongue was ruined by the front door opening at that very moment.

Youngjae came through first with the overnight bag slung across his shoulder, glancing behind him to check on the morbid procession that stumbled over the threshold a few moments later.

Yugyeom watched with guilt poisoning every cell in his body as Jaebeom staggered clumsily into the hallway with Jackson’s arm secured around his waist and Bambam’s hand closed around his elbow. 

The pair of them looked like they were the only thing keeping the leader standing, and the moment Mark closed the front door behind them, he was ordering his dongsaeng to the couch.

Jaebeom allowed the others to guide him to the cushions where he collapsed against them, sighing from the effort of making the short journey. He looked so exhausted that he didn’t even protest when Jinyoung hurried over to lay him down on his side and prop his legs up on the sofa.

And as the light fell across his face, Yugyeom caught sight of the damage he’d done for the first time.

He hadn’t been allowed to see his hyung since the incident. The others had kept him away from the hospital, refusing to let him accompany them on their daily visits and only now that Jaebeom had been discharged was the maknae permitted to interact with him.

But he didn’t want to.

It had been a week since the assault and yet Jaebeom’s bruises were still an angry blackened colour, splattered over his face and neck and Yugyeom could even see the outline of his own fingers burned into pale skin.

His leader’s left eye was barely open, the lids puffed and purple and painful-looking, and his hand cradled his ribs with a ginger wince on the lips that were split down the middle and still a little bloodied.

Jackson had been absolutely right. He was battered and, from the way he seemed to wither with each little movement, in a lot of pain. 

“Manager-hyung's bringing your prescription from the pharmacy,” Mark was saying as Yugyeom continued to watch from the kitchen table, separated from his hyungs by eight feet of carpet and a thousand miles of unspoken fear. “Do you want some ice or a drink or something?”

“Stop fussing,” Jaebeom protested weakly, and his voice sounded like metal grating on metal. “I'm jus’ gonna take a nap.”

The others seemed to accept his refusal to be coddled and gradually drifted off into various parts of the house. Bambam, however, stayed in the armchair, curled into a ball with his eyes fixed on Jaebeom's sleeping figure as though he were too terrified to let him out of his sight. 

Yugyeom just watched with silent tears streaming down his face, oblivious to all other movement until Jinyoung gave him an insistent tap on the shoulder and pointed to the untouched bowl of stew. 

“Eat up, Gyeom.” 

It was only because of the nickname he had so sorely missed that Yugyeom was able to choke down the stew and return to his empty room without having to lunge for the bathroom and vomit his guts up. As if that hadn't already happened enough in the past week. 

*****************

“Gyeom, pills!” Mark called, like an owner summoning its dog, as Yugyeom tiptoed tentatively into the kitchen. 

It was more the humiliation at the patronising way all his human rights seemed to have evaporated the moment the doctor diagnosed him that had tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. 

And he’d had to walk through the living room to get to his breakfast so his morning mind had already refreshed how bruised and beaten Jaebeom still looked. 

“Yes, hyung,” he mumbled, lowering his head to the floor so that he wouldn’t have to see Youngjae and Bambam watching him with a mixture of sympathy and something else that he couldn’t recognise. 

Maybe it was fear. Who knew anymore?

The tiny white capsules of medicated sherbert dropped into the palm of his outstretched hand and he swallowed them dry, relishing in the pain that tightened in his chest from the lack of water to ease the pills’ passageway. 

He deserved it, after all. 

The irritation was already reaching a peak when Mark ordered him to open his mouth and move his tongue from side to side so he could confirm his dongsaeng wasn’t preserving the tablets for some secret overdosing scheme later on. And it was only going to take the tiniest nudge to bubble over.

Jinyoung entered the room, one hand securing Jaebeom by the elbow so he could guide him to his chair, and Yugyeom couldn’t even raise his head to see the damage he’d done. 

He heard the concerned questions from his fellow maknaes and there was some part of him that dearly wished they would inquire those same things of him. 

He was sick, too. Bipolar disorder. It was an illness. A real illness and it was horrible and he hated it. 

It was the cause of his depression right now, he knew that. And it was also the cause of the brutal attack on his hyung. But no one asked him if he was okay. No one asked him if he needed to lie down or if he was in pain or if he’d had another nightmare. No one cared. 

So when Bambam spoke to him, a tentative hand resting timidly on his shoulder, he wondered why he even bothered to suppress the raging creature clawing at his chest.

“Gyeom, I’m going to drive you to your therapist appointment today. Is that okay?”

He snapped. He whipped around, throwing Bambam’s hand off and starting forwards with his lip curled in unbearable frustration. He hated being treated like a child, spoken to like he was made of glass and tiptoed around because they were afraid he would break again. 

If they wanted a break, he would show them a break. 

“Stop speaking to me like that!” he screamed, and the terror on Bambam’s face didn’t even phase him anymore. “I’m not a kid and I’m not disabled! I’m ill! Bipolar is an illness and all of you are treating me like I don’t even know how to clean my fucking teeth! Just stop it!”

He threw up his hands, intending to violently rake them through his hair, but it wasn’t until later on that he realised why the others had reacted the way they did. 

Bambam flinched - a horrified, frightened flinch - and Jinyoung immediately threw himself forwards to pull the kid as far away from Yugyeom as the cramped kitchen space would allow. Both Mark and Jackson emitted similar cries that consisted of the words either, “Stop!” or “Don’t!” and Jaebeom lunged out of his chair.

The leader made it three feet towards the maknae, as though he wanted to insert himself between Bambam and this psychotic monster, before his impromptu and very violent movements caught up with his injured body and he gave a cry of pain, grabbing for the counter before he crashed to his knees and was instantly surrounded by mollycoddling hands and worried words. 

“I …” Yugyeom whispered, retreating until his back hit the cupboards along the wall. “I’m sorry …”

But no one was listening to him. They were all fixated on Jaebeom as the leader collapsed against Youngjae’s chest with his hands cupping his ribs and his bruised face screwed up in agony, struggling to regain his breath. 

“I would never … I would never hit …” 

_ Except you have, _ that cruel little voice of his conscience hissed in his ears. _ You have hit them and you have hurt them and they thought you were about to do it again. _

Yugyeom bolted from the scene, locked himself in the bathroom and weighed out the pros and cons of slitting his wrist as he sobbed himself stupid from where he’d curled up in the shower.

Just over a week ago, he had been the centre of the universe. So unbelievably happy. He'd thought that his life couldn't possibly get any better and only now did he know that all of it was just an illusion. A chemical imbalance in his brain. A sickness. 

His happiness was a sickness. How fucked up was that? 

He wanted to turn back time so that he hadn't completely flunked that speech at his parents’ funerals. So that he hadn't refused his hyungs’ pleas to see a therapist. So that he hadn't bought that goddamn motorbike that now resided in the garage, alone and unwanted. 

Just like him. Alone and unwanted Yugyeom who only has to reach for his hair to make his hyungs think he's going to start swinging fists again. 

Alone and unwanted. Alone and unwanted and bipolar. 


	9. Disgust And Mistrust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
"What Kind Of Future" by Woozi (Seventeen)

Things got better, but only marginally. 

Yugyeom was still manhandled to the dinner table for every meal, scrutinised until he had choked down each morsel, and he was yet to be trusted to take his own medication. 

But Youngjae had hugged him. Youngjae had hugged him and, more importantly, the others had let him. 

It was as if the trust was slowly but surely starting to return as day by day, Yugyeom remained placid and quiet and reserved. He gave them no reason to believe he was dangerous and so they had begun to treat him as their maknae again. 

It was almost three weeks after the incident with Bambam that Jaebeom requested a fan meet. 

He was still barred from dancing even though his bruises had faded into sickly green splodges and he no longer walked like each step caused him terrible agony, and so the lack of exercise had started to drive him crazy. 

“I need to do something,” he announced at the dinner table one night. 

Mark had been trying to get them to eat altogether in the hopes it would help Yugyeom feel more friendly towards his food. 

“I don't want to hide away and give the fans more time to start cooking up theories.”

Yugyeom lowered his gaze, picking awkwardly at his chopsticks while his leader spoke. 

“If we don't start moving forward then we're just going to be stuck in this repetitive cycle forever.”

He was right. Each day had been identical to the one before for the last month and Yugyeom knew that if he didn't pull himself out of this hole of depression and self-loathing, he would just continue to spiral. 

The combination of his medication, his therapy and his hyungs’ returning affection had slowly started to ignite that fire inside of him and he could not afford to lose it. 

“What do you think, Gyeom?” Jinyoung suddenly interjected, shocking Yugyeom out of his silent reverie and jolting him into raising his head to see six faces patiently awaiting an answer. “About doing a fanmeet? What do you think?”

He wanted to say yes. He desperately wanted to say yes in the hopes it would boost them further on the path to normalcy, but at the same time, he was terrified. 

What if something set him off? He understood that the medication was supposed to control his mood swings, and it had been doing a great job so far, but he still felt like he was a firework everyone was just waiting to explode. 

“We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready to do,” Jackson was saying, and the others nodded. 

They were telling him it was okay to say no. To take a little more time to gain back his confidence and repair the still fragile relationships with each of his hyungs.

But then he looked at Jaebeom, who still bore the remnants of his little brother’s brutal assault, and yet was more than willing to throw himself back in front of the public eye. 

Jaebeom wasn’t afraid. Jaebeom wasn’t ashamed. And it might have been Yugyeom’s hopeful desperation but he could have sworn that Jaebeom had never made a single indication to make the youngest believe he was hated. 

“No,” he said with a little more volume than he’d originally intended, but liking how strong it made him sound. “I want to. If that’s okay with you all, that is … I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or … I don’t know.” 

No one addressed his insecurity, because each of them felt it too. The interactions they held with each other were still slightly forced and strained as every single one of them tried to forget what it had looked like to see their maknae pinning their leader to the ground as he beat him into the concrete. 

“Well, it’s settled then,” Jaebeom said, clapping his hands together. It was too jovial, the cheeriness was clearly forced, but Yugyeom didn’t mind. He liked that Jaebeom was trying. “I’ll contact the management company and see what they have to say.” 

They made absent and unimportant smalltalk for the rest of the meal, Yugyeom remaining utterly fixated on his gradually dwindling food and barely contributing to the conversation at all, but when the others were clearing up the dishes, Jaebeom’s hand shot out to ensnare itself around his little brother’s wrist. 

“I’m proud of you,” he whispered, and then he was gone before Yugyeom had a chance to think up an appropriate response. 

The words spread warmth throughout his chest, the feeling of validation and forgiveness almost bringing him to tears of happiness, but he was confused.

Why would Jaebeom be proud? What had Yugyeom done except keep his head down and not caused anyone grievous bodily harm? What was there to be proud of? 

Nothing.

*********************

After the drop - the moment where his euphoria had dipped into the most intense depression he had ever experienced - Yugyeom believed that he would never smile again.

He believed he was destined to a life of pill popping and psychiatrists and daily reminders of the terrible actions he had committed. 

But now he sat in the centre of a long table with Bambam on one side and Jaebeom on the other with a sea of beaming faces in front of him and a line of tearful fans awaiting his signature. And he couldn’t help but stretch his lips in a smile so unfamiliar to his face that it almost hurt. 

He listened to Jackson joking through the microphone at the other end of the table, keeping up the fan service, and he tried to assure himself that he was imagining the way each girl who slid her merchandise beneath his nose was eyeing him with a kind of wary uneasiness.

His hands were constricted by fingerless gloves, carefully picked out to match his outfit as well as conceal the slight discoloration his knuckles still displayed, and Jaebeom was lathered in makeup to hide the greenish tint that still lingered on the peak of his cheekbone and around his left eye.

There was no reason for a single person in this room to know what had happened. 

But as a girl barely even glanced at him, flatout ignoring his attempts to make friendly conversation with her as he scribbled his signature across an album cover, paranoia had transformed into certainty.

These people knew something.

He glanced at Jaebeom, wondering if there was any way he could convey his anxiety to the leader without alerting the fans in front of them, but his hyung was too engrossed in teasing that same girl with an arm wrestle.

Yugyeom was trapped, unable to allow his shiny exterior to slip for even a second for fear he would trigger an uprising of heckles and suspicious photos that the media would sink its talons into without any chance of letting go.

He shook himself, forcing down the urge to get up and sprint off the stage with his arms protectively shielding his head, and instead plastered the widest smile he could muster over his strained facial muscles as he turned to the next fan. 

His mouth opened to greet her, cheery and chirpy, and his mind was already starting to think up something funny he could do to make her and her followers giggle, but she slid right past him.

She clutched her merchandise close to her chest as though he might taint it with his touch and moved straight on to Jaebeom without even giving him so much as a sideways glance.

The leader noticed, his eyes shooting sideways in an attempt to capture Yugyeom’s attention, but Yugyeom was too busy trying not to cry. He could feel his eyes burning with humiliation and lowered his gaze under the pretense of picking at a loose thread on his sweater sleeve.

He had been skipped at fansigns before. They all had. It was embarrassing and degrading and left the idols wondering what it was that they could have possibly done so wrong. It was nothing any of them were strangers to, and Yugyeom knew he should pull himself together. 

It was probably nothing. Just some OT6 supporter who preferred the others to him or had recently watched a video posted some months ago that portrayed his excitable personality as obnoxious or irritating. But then the next fan skipped him, too, and this time, she had the nerve to look him in the eye as she did. 

And he saw the fear. The disgust. The mistrust. He saw hatred. And before he knew what he was doing, he was staggering out of his chair so clumsily that the furniture toppled backwards onto the stage with a loud crash.

Bambam called out something and Jaebeom’s fingers reached for his sleeve but he was already staggering off the stage with his hand clutched to his face and his tears falling freely. 

They knew. They had to know. They knew he was sick. Psychotic. Deranged. Dangerous. They knew he’d hurt Jaebeom and they wanted nothing more to do with him.

They wanted him gone.

Some of them probably even wanted him dead.

But how? How did they know? The statement they’d made on Twitter had been vague and unspecific. There was no way they could know. But they did. 

There were staff members reaching out for him, crying his name and telling him to calm down, to stop for a moment so they could figure out how to help him, but Yugyeom dodged and ducked past each one of them. He couldn’t be touched right now. He just couldn’t.

A door stood off to his left and he barged through it, barely even registering the shelves of electronic equipment that lined the walls before his knees buckled and he crawled into the corner of the closet to tuck his legs up to his chest and bury his face in the drenched denim.

They knew. Everyone knew. And he didn’t have the right to be upset because it was Jaebeom who had been the one in a hospital bed for six days. It was Jaebeom who had been battered almost beyond recognition and therefore it was Jaebeom who should be upset. Not him.

He was the cause of that upset. He was the cause of every smidgen of pain they had endured.

And the world knew that. He didn’t know when or how they had found out but they knew. And they hated him. They didn’t want to touch him. They didn’t even want to look at him. Because he was dangerous. The polar opposite of who they had thought he was. 

The bipolar opposite. 


	10. We Are Just People

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
"All Night" by RM and Suga (BTS)
> 
> And the happiest of birthdays to Mark Tuan! I hope he has the best day :)

One of the makeup stylists found him. Apparently, he’d been AWOL for close to two hours by the time she had thought to check the storage cupboard and found a boy with tear tracks scorched into his skin and powderpuff eyes. 

She had talked to him in soothing words, taken his elbow in her small hands and stroked her fingers back and forth over the material of his sweater until he had agreed to let her help him to his feet. 

From then onwards, he couldn’t remember what had happened. He just knew that he’d been steered into another room and then his hyungs were with him. 

“What happened?” Jaebeom whispered as he settled himself beside the maknae on the sofa, a comforting hand wrapped around his thigh. “You were doing so well. What suddenly made you so upset?”

Yugyeom felt like he was drowning. Dry drowning. Because he had cried every drop of moisture in his body and yet he was still suffocating. 

“They know,” was all he managed to choke out, shoulders hitching with the effort of forming syllables. 

“Know what, Gyeom?”

Yugyeom tried to swallow the dryness in his throat before he realised it was just his tongue. “That I’m a monster.” 

There was a split second of silence before Mark was crouched in front of him, hand chipping his chin to force him into raising his head so they could meet eyes. 

Yugyeom saw the heartbreak in his eldest brother’s expression and some twisted instinct managed to convince him that it was his fault.

“You’re not a monster,” Mark stated, rigid and decisive with his voice lathered in a don’t-you-dare-contradict-me tone. “No one would ever call you that, so you shouldn’t either.”

Yugyeom shook his head. He was just unable to accept that he was hearing these words when, for weeks, they had barely been able to hold a conversation with him and not look afraid of the potential they knew he held. 

If they didn’t think he was a psycho then why had they let him believe he was?

“Gyeom?” Jaebeom pushed and Yugyeom reluctantly met his gaze. “What do you mean ‘they know’?”

The tears revisited without permission as Yugyeom explained his encounter with those girls, one of whom had refused to look at him and the other had seemed scared to even be breathing the same air as him. 

He told them how humiliated he’d felt. How helpless he’d been until he’d had to dive off the stage before he had a full-blown panic attack in front of dozens of people.

There was another stretch of silence as his hyungs processed the new information. Youngjae had wrapped him in a hug once he’d finished, gently stroking his hair as he sobbed and telling him that they loved him even if the fans didn’t understand what he was going through.

“We’re going to find out how it was leaked,” Jinyoung murmured from somewhere above and Yugyeom simply nodded against Youngjae’s chest. “But it’s happened and there’s nothing we can do about it now. So what do you want to do, Gyeom?”

“Die,” Yugyeom wailed pathetically, ignoring Youngjae’s soft whisper of ‘no, Gyeom, no’. “I want to die.” 

“Okay,” Jinyoung acknowledged. “And once you’ve calmed down, what do you want to do?”

Yugyeom just shrugged. He cried and he shrugged. 

He could think of nothing he wanted except oblivion: an escape from the crushing despair that was devouring his insides and the tiny voice in his head that insisted on reminding him how the fans he had thought were going to love and support him forever knew that he had mutilated his own brother.

“Can I make a suggestion?” Bambam piped up, and no one made a move to refuse, so he continued. “I think you should make a video, Gyeom, to explain what happened.”

Yugyeom’s head shot up, shaking from side to side so violently that the world started to spin when he stopped, but Bambam’s hands raised in surrender as he tried to soothe the sudden onset panic.

“Just hear me out,” he implored, and Yugyeom fell silent obediently, still clinging onto Youngjae for dear life. “I guarantee you that less than 10% of people out there actually understand what Bipolar Disorder is. Everything they’ve seen and heard are probably exaggerated stories from movies or BuzzFeed or something.”

In spite of himself, Yugyeom let out a soft chuckle, and it seemed to give Bambam the confidence he needed to continue.

“You can do it with us or on your own but I think you should explain how difficult things are for you and how you weren’t thinking clearly when … Jaebeom-hyung … You know …” He trailed off awkwardly when the slight smirk to Yugyeom’s lips had vanished the second their leader’s name had been introduced. 

“I like it,” Jaebeom announced, clearly trying to break the uncomfortable stalemate. “If you think you can do it, Gyeom, then you should. I’ll be with you if you want and I can explain it from my perspective. I’ll tell everyone how you weren’t in your right mind when it happened.”

Tears were starting to resurface in Yugyeom’s eyes and he blinked them back furiously, too ashamed to reveal anymore of his vulnerability, but Jaebeom’s hand clamped down on his fingers, squeezing as tightly as he could without causing pain.

“Because you weren’t in your right mind, Gyeom,” he pushed, as though he would sell his soul to make Yugyeom believe it was true. “You weren’t thinking clearly. You’re sick, and I’m so sorry that it took us such a long time to acknowledge that. We didn’t understand and we never stopped to think that you didn’t either.”

They still didn’t. What was there to understand? It had come from nowhere and hit them like a train and none of them could fathom why.

“I’ve never blamed you for what happened that day, Gyeom,” Jaebeom continued and there were hums of approval from the others as they edged a little closer, forming that circle of comfort around their maknae. “I know you wouldn’t have hurt me like that unless there was something seriously wrong, and there was. So there’s no reason for either of us to place guilt. Not anymore. Do you believe me, Yugyeom?”

“Yes.”

*********************

There had been a fan in the street the day Yugyeom attacked Jaebeom. A girl, mid-twenties, who had found herself unintentionally strolling onto a scene where she watched the youngest member of her favourite group straddling its leader on the ground as he pummelled his face and chest with clenched fists of fury.

So, naturally, she had told the entire world. 

No one had believed her due to her lack of proof, but then they had stepped foot in that fansign and seen Yugyeom with those gloves and Jaebeom with his minimal movements and make-up caked face, and they had realised the source of such a dreadful rumour had been telling the truth. 

Jaebeom had asked Yugyeom if he still wanted to make the video, that they would stand by him and wait until he was ready if today wasn’t the day, but Yugyeom had refused. If anything, now was the perfect time to make the best excuse they could.

So they went live at 8pm on a Saturday night, just the maknae and the leader sitting side by side on the living room sofa. 

Jaebeom had told Yugyeom to do as much of the talking as he could in the hopes that it would help convince the fanbase of their candour. 

And he tried his best.

“Hi, Ahgase! We missed you! I'm just going to jump straight in, I guess … I know that there have been some … some rumours going around recently that me and Jae … Jaebeom-hyung wanted to address as soon as possible. You may not have heard but if you have, you will know that Hyung and I … We …”

He glanced at Jaebeom, silently begging for help, but Jaebeom just squeezed his thigh and gave him a look that clearly said,  _ You can do this. I’m right here.  _

“There was an incident in which I … I hurt Hyung and … and …”

He took a deep breath, latching onto the hand around his leg that grounded him with its gentle palpitations in his muscles, convincing him that everything would be okay as long as he told the truth. 

“And it’s true. I know how awful it sounds and how disappointed you all must be in me. Believe me, I’m disappointed in myself, too. But …”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Jaebeom suddenly cut off, refusing to look his dongsaeng in the eye and instead staring down the camera. “There was a reason behind it and Yugyeom is being so incredibly brave sharing it with you all today, so we ask you to please be understanding and hear him out.” 

Yugyeom inhaled once more, deep and long, and plunged right into the icy rapids. 

“A few weeks ago, I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. It’s a psychiatric illness where my moods can swing from one extreme to another without any warning. I can’t control them, as much as I may want to, but I am working hard on trying to get better.”

His eyes found their way to Jaebeom once more but his leader was nodding his encouragement, smiling at him to let him know he was doing amazing. 

So he continued.

“People who suffer from bipolar can experience episodes of depression, and also episodes of mania in which we appear very happy and hyperactive. This was the state I was in … when … when I … When I hurt Jaebeom-hyung …”

“He had no control over his actions,” Jaebeom interrupted once more, still glaring at the camera as though he could hear the accusatory words behind the screens. “He never meant any harm towards me at all. Just because he has bipolar doesn’t mean he’s dangerous.”

Yugyeom nodded, feeling a new burst of strength at his hyung’s protective words. They spurred him on to address possibly the scariest aspect of this disease that was trying to claim his brain as its own. 

“While I’m manic - or while I’m depressed - it’s possible that I could lash out and get angry. It is a side effect of the disorder but it’s really important to me that you guys know the facts. Only 10% of people diagnosed with Bipolar display violent tendencies. It is an extreme rarity and just because it’s a symptom I've developed, I want to make it clear that the vast majority of sufferers are completely harmless. They are more of a danger to themselves then they are to others.” 

His tongue was starting to act of its own accord. He was barely even telling it which words to wrap itself around anymore.

“So if you meet somebody who has Bipolar Disorder, please remember me. Remember that we are just people. We are not monsters. We are not psychopaths. We will not hurt you, but we do need help. We need medication to control the mood swings and therapy to talk through our emotions but more than any of that, we need our friends and our family right behind us.”

He tightened his grip on Jaebeom’s hand which was still resting on his thigh. 

“Please don’t assume things if you don’t know the facts yet. Please don’t write us off for having a warning label taped to our chests. I will do my best to continue performing, to keep producing music and being the maknae that you love. Thank you for your support.”

There was a moment where he and Jaebeom just sat there, pressed together on the couch, with their fingers entwined as they stared at the phone screen. Until finally Yugyeom snapped out of his reverie and leaned forwards to end the recording. 

The moment he had pressed that red button and the notification had popped up, announcing his successful broadcast, Jaebeom wrapped his tree branch-like arms around his neck and held on for dear life. 

“I’m so proud of you,” he whispered into Yugyeom’s ear, tightening his grip when he felt his little brother beginning to shake with silent tears. “That was amazing. You did so well. And we are going to be right here with you every step of the way. We’re not going anyway. We love you, Gyeom. We love you so much.”

And Yugyeom believed him. For the first time in weeks, he believed him. And he believed that maybe - just maybe - he could beat this. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those of you who know me will be fully aware that this happiness will not last long


	11. Spectacular

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
"Like This" by Pentagon

The hyungs were true to their word. 

Yugyeom hadn't realised just how much he'd resented them for treating him like a demon until they started doting on him like an angel. 

It was difficult for each and every one of them to try and get a grasp on the disease that feasted upon their maknae's mind but now they were doing something they hadn't done before. 

They were trying. 

And it wasn't like they were handling him like he was made of glass and speaking to him like he suffered from some debilitating mental deformity. They actually asked him, without patronising him, how he felt and what he was able to do that day. Whether he was experiencing anymore suicidal thoughts, whether he wanted to go for a walk, whether he just wanted one of them to lie in bed with him for the day.

His therapist told him he was in a “neutral” phase, something only possible due to the heavy doses of medication he was being pumped with day after day. But there was no depression and there was no mania and he was just … him. 

Except he wasn’t.

He felt different. Like he was floating all day every day with his head somewhere far off in the clouds. He was docile, quiet, sleepy, and not like he had been when he was stewing in bed for weeks on end with nothing on his mind except death. 

And he could never focus. No matter how hard he tried, he could never completely concentrate on anything for longer than a duration of thirty seconds. 

It was as if his thoughts were being invaded. His brain was procuring them out of thin air just like it should but there was something in the way that was preventing them from reaching the places they needed to reach. Something evil. Something that was dulling his personality and turning him into a zombie. 

“Shit!” he huffed in frustration as he threw down his pencil for the fifth time that evening and leant back in his chair, raking his fingers through his tangled hair. 

The Entertainment company had been … struggling recently, to say the least. And JYP had asked him to choreograph a routine for the new debut group, saying that it would be good for fanservice if there was a song dedicated to another idol’s talents. But Yugyeom just couldn’t focus. 

He was letting them down. Those little kids who’d spent years training, just like he had, so they could follow him on this treacherous but astronomically rewarding path, were looking to him for guidance and leadership and he could give them nothing but mental health and a pyramid of pill bottles in the corner of his desk.

Yugyeom reached for the little orange pot at the top, flipping open the cap and tipping a tiny sherbert nugget into his palm. He returned the container to its place and brought his hand up to his mouth, preparing to swallow as he’d done thousands of times before, but something made him stop. 

A little voice in his head was whispering,  _ Don’t do it. It’s making you like this.  _ And Yugyeom stared down at that tiny harmless tablet sitting comfortably between his thumb and forefinger and found himself questioning its true motives. 

Haloperidol. A mood-stabiliser. But that was all he knew about it. One of dozens that he ingested daily and yet he realised that he had never properly inquired upon its effects, its usage, its necessity. 

Maybe it was time for that to change. 

His fingers were so badly coordinated that it took several agonising tries before he finally managed to spell the name of the drug correctly in the internet search engine bar. The pages came up, a column of highlighted blue titles that each looked more boring than the next, but Yugyeom wanted answers and answers he would get. 

_ Haloperidol. Used for long-term treatment of a certain mental/mood disorders.  _

Well, that would be the bipolar then. 

_ This medication is usually prescribed for those who are at risk of self-harm or suicide attempts. _

Wow … Tell it how it is, why don’t you.

_ It also reduces aggression and the desire to hurt others.  _

Maybe if I’d been prescribed this one sooner, Jaebeom-hyung wouldn’t still limp every so often.

_ Side effects may include loss of concentration, anxiety, drowsiness, headaches and an inability to focus on everyday activities.  _

He knew it. He knew it was the medication slowly sucking his personality out of him like some vampire with an extremely acquired taste. Maybe these pills were stopping him from going batshit crazy again, but at the same time, they were impeding his judgement and his job and stopping him from helping his juniors. 

So they needed to go. His work came before anything and everything else, so if there was something keeping him from carrying out the tasks that should have come naturally to him, it had to be eradicated from his life immediately. 

And considering his hyungs were now trusting him to handle his own medication, it would be easy to just … stop taking it. Only then would he be able to get back to how he was before: the Yugyeom that the fans knew and loved. 

The Yugyeom that the members tormented relentlessly but it didn’t matter because he took it like a champ. The Yugyeom that could dance for Korea. The Yugyeom that wasn’t a mindless drone, incapable of any original thoughts. He wanted to be that Yugyeom again.

So that night, the haloperidol was flushed down the toilet.

But he still felt no different. He still struggled with everyday tasks that required the bare minimum of basic concentration.

So the next night, the fluoxetine went down the toilet, too.

And then the olanzapine.

And finally the ziprasidone.

And that Yugyeom was back. That happy, hyper, quirky boy only just crossing the border between adolescence and adulthood was once again bounding through the hallways, screeching at the top of his lungs and having grape-wars with Bambam.

It had taken a couple of weeks for the withdrawal symptoms to die, but they had been manageable, not nearly as bad as he’d thought they’d be and now he was him again. He was exactly who he wanted to be. And he was fine.

Maybe he hadn’t needed the medication after all.

Because he felt fine. He  _ was  _ fine. Everything was fine. Actually, it was more than fine.

You could say it was …  _ spectacular.  _

******************

“Okay,” Youngjae announced, licking an oversized dollop of chocolate cake mixture off the tip of his finger and swatting at Bambam’s hand as the younger tried to reach into the bowl for the fiftieth time. “Now what do we do?”

The younger of the two stopped, looking up at him with a blank expression. “I don’t know. I thought you knew what we were doing.”

“I thought  _ you  _ knew what we were doing!” Youngjae blanched, the two of them grinning sheepishly at each other as they came to the overdue conclusion that neither of them had any idea what they were doing.

“I say we just put as much chocolate in as possible,” Bambam decided, emptying another packet of chocolate chips into the clumsily-combined cake batter/cookie dough/whatever the hell this was. “You can never have enough chocolate.”

“What’cha doin’?” came a playful joust from the doorway and Bambam looked up, midway through trying to sneak a swirl of cocoa butter onto his tongue, to see Yugyeom swaggering over to them.

“We’re making …” Youngjae looked down at the explosion of ingredients before him and took a moment of pondering. “I don’t know what we’re making but it tastes amazing so I don’t think it matters.”

Yugyeom laughed, a high-pitched dolphin cackle as he threw his whole body into a stoop of mirth that seemed far too overdramatic for a statement that wasn’t even that funny.

“You’re in a good mood,” Bambam commented, sly smirk quirking at his lips. “It’s been great to see you smiling more often recently.”

“Here, here,” Youngjae contributed as he poured the clumpy gloop into a baking tin (that they hadn’t greased), looking so focused with his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth.

“I know!” Yugyeom beamed back, positively glowing with happiness in his bouncing circuit of the kitchen with his arms spread wide in order to touch every surface he passed. He looked like a little kid. “I feel … Oh my god, guys, I feel spectacular!”

Bambam froze. Every muscle in his body seemed to contort into a twisted concrete structure of fibres and gristle and right beside him, he could feel Youngjae doing exactly the same. 

It could have been nothing. Just a coincidence. Yugyeom couldn’t remember half the things he’d done when he’d been manic so a simple usage of a meagre word surely wasn’t any indication of anything … bad.

But then Yugyeom slammed his hands on the table in gleeful epiphany, oblivious to the twitch in his hyungs’ bodies as they tried not to react instinctively to the playful aggression. 

“I should open a bakery!” he gasped, as though this newest discovery was right up there with gravity and the spherical shape of the earth. “Yeah … Yeah! I should open a bakery! And you guys could help! Oh, my god, it would be amazing! It would be … incredible! It would be …”

“Spectacular?” Bambam whispered, looking his best friend up and down as though he expected some neon sign to be flashing above his head, screeching the word MANIC.

Yugyeom turned towards him, the widest of grins splitting his face in two as he clicked his fingers and pointed at Bambam with a triumphant wink of his left eye. “Exactly.”

Bambam’s fingers curled around Youngjae’s forearm, the both of them pressed right up against the kitchen cabinets as Yugyeom started pulling all the cooking books from the shelves. He didn’t know what exactly was happening, what kind of chemical imbalance was going on in Yugyeom’s brain, but what he did know was that the hyungs weren’t here.

“Gyeom …” he started, feeling Youngjae’s grip on him tighten but carrying on regardless, needing to take some control over this situation. “Have you taken your meds today?”

Yugyeom’s demeanour changed so fast Bambam wouldn’t have been surprised if it gave him whiplash. The kid suddenly tensed, whipping around from where he’d been flicking through a cookery book like he was hyped up on something. Like he’d taken something. But he hadn’t. And that was the problem.

“Is that all any of you think about?” he snapped, and now Bambam was scared. He was ashamed to admit it but he was. He was terrified of his best friend.

Yugyeom slammed the book shut and Youngjae jumped. The youngest only had a look of moderate irritation on his face but his body language screamed  _ furious. _

“Can’t I just be happy?” he spat at them, flecks of spittle flying from the tip of his tongue. “Is that not possible? Is that what we’ve come to? That I can’t just be in a good mood without having my mental health questioned for the billionth time?”

“You’re right, Gyeom,” Youngjae interjected, taking a tiny step forwards so that he was at least standing in front of Bambam, shielding him. “We’re sorry. Of course you have the right to be happy.”

Yugyeom stared at them for a split second where everybody in the room seemed to be holding their breath, as though expecting a bomb to detonate and a thousand tonnes of shrapnel to crash down on top of them. And then he just broke into a grin that once upon a time would have been contagious. Now it was just poisonous.

“Great!” he bubbled, turning back to the books he clearly hadn’t realised he’d ripped the pages of in his excitement. “Because I’ve been thinking about this for only … like … two minutes and already I’ve got all these ideas! We can set it up in my hometown first, my parents can help run it … Oh, wait, no, they can’t. They’re dead.”

By now, Bambam was on the verge of tears. It was happening again. Something had gone wrong in his best friend’s brain and now he didn’t know what he was doing. He thought it was euphoria but it was just the sickness that had infected his body. And it could make him do anything.

“Move,” came the hiss in his ear and he noticed for the first time that Youngjae was pushing him ever so gently towards the door, eyes trained carefully on Yugyeom’s back. “Do it quietly.”

Bambam obeyed without question, edging across the kitchen tiles with his heart racing a million miles per hour, his hand groping behind him until it fisted in Youngjae’s shirt to assure himself that his hyung was coming with him.

“Hey!”

He froze. His blood turned to slushie temperature. And the first tear slid from between his eyelids to dribble onto his quivering lips.

“Where are you going? I still haven’t told you about all my plans.”

Bambam could hear the fear in Youngjae’s voice as he stuttered to find an appropriate answer and he had to remind himself that the person he was so terrified of was just a little boy. A sick little boy who wasn’t in his right mind. But that wasn’t something they could deal with right now.

“Bam and I are …” Youngjae started, and his body was trembling even if his voice was steady. “We’re just going to …”

Yugyeom strode over to them, footsteps powerful and arms swinging at his sides, and for a moment, Bambam thought he was going to start throwing punches, but then he did something much worse.

He reached over Youngjae’s shoulder and procured one of the kitchen knives from the wrack on the counter behind them. 

There was no malice in his eyes, no indication that he was going to hurt them, but just the sight of that blade being twirled gracefully through the fingers of the person who had put their leader in the hospital just a few months previously was enough to let Bambam know that neither he nor Youngjae were leaving anytime soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scared yet?


	12. Still Yugyeom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
"Fine" by Taeyeon (SNSD)

“Come on,” Yugyeom spouted, fastening an iron tight – painfully tight – grip on Bambam’s wrist and pulling him further into the kitchen. “I’ve got to show you this recipe I just found.”

Bambam’s head whipped around, pleading eyes fixated on Youngjae’s face. He didn’t know whether he was begging his hyung to make a run for it and call for help or to stay and not leave him alone with this boy who brandished a knife in his face.

Youngjae stayed. He shouldn’t have thought he would do any different. Of course, Youngjae stayed.

He fastened his hands on Bambam’s shoulders from behind, protecting his back at all times while Yugyeom zipped around the kitchen, pulling random ingredients out of the cupboards.

Sometimes he took the blade with him, sometimes he left it on the countertop and Bambam was horrified at the instincts ordering him to grab it and spill blood.

“Just stay calm,” Youngjae was whispering in his ear. “It’s still Yugyeom. It’s still him. Mark-hyung will be home any moment now. It’s still Yugyeom.”

And Bambam wanted to believe him, but he couldn’t. The person shooting backwards and forwards in front of him looked like Yugyeom, it sounded like Yugyeom but all he could see was the person who had straddled Jaebeom in the street so he could beat him half to death.

The only thing that was keeping him from bolting for the door in a bid to save his own skin was Youngjae’s body pressed against his back.

Then the key turned in the front door and the sound Bambam thought would bring him an overwhelming sense of relief suddenly instilled within him nothing but fear. Because now Mark was home, and in just as much danger as they were.

“Hey, guys!”

The call from the hallway was weary but cheerful and Bambam couldn’t help the feeling that he and Youngjae were being held hostage, unable to speak and reveal their position.

But then Yugyeom chirped back with his face split in a beaming grin and his fingers still playing with the handle of the knife as he returned the welcome.

“Hey, hyung! Come in here! I just had the best idea and I want to show you!”

Mark appeared in the doorway, bag slung over his shoulder and hands rubbing tiredly at the wells of his eyes, hair messy and overall demeanour exhausted.

But the second he saw Yugyeom in the centre of the kitchen, weapon in hand, and Bambam and Youngjae cowering by the wall, any trace of fatigue was ripped from his body.

He didn’t dare speak. Didn’t dare do anything that might trigger something potentially lethal. All he did was let his eyes travel over to the two by the fridge, Youngjae still clinging to Bambam’s back, and he met their eyes, asking a silent question.

Bambam wished he could scream a warning, “He’s off his meds! He’s dangerous! Get us out of here!” but his words were stuck in his throat and he would have been too terrified to utter them even if he could.

Instead, he shook his head ever so slightly from right to left, begging his hyung to understand the silent message he was trying to convey.

“That’s awesome, Gyeom,” Mark piped up, and Bambam was amazed with his acting ability. He didn’t even sound the least bit afraid. “You’ve got to tell me all about it, but I’m feeling in desperate need of one of those milkshakes in the coffee shop across town. Come with me, will you?”

Bambam knew what he was doing. He was drawing him out of the house, away from him and Youngjae. He was replacing them in the firing line, and that was the last thing he would have asked for. He didn’t want Mark in danger. He didn’t want to sit by another hyung’s bedside and stare at his bruised face.

But he said nothing.

“Sure!” Yugyeom responded, setting the knife down and reaching for his jacket on the back of the chair before turning to the other two. “You coming?”

“Nah,” Mark answered for them. “Just you and me, Gyeom. Come on. Mathyung and Maknae bonding time.”

Yugyeom agreed without another protest, slipping his arms into his coat and practically skipping out into the corridor, already babbling about his greatest discovery of baking at the top of his voice.

Mark took three seconds to linger in the doorway, mouthing silent words to his dongsaengs across the expanse of kitchen tiles and Bambam could see there was a sliver of fear in his eyes.

_ Call the police. _

And then they were leaving, and Bambam didn’t want them to. He wanted Mark to stay and Yugyeom to go and he hated himself for it, but he wanted his maknae gone and his mathyung here. With him. Where he would be safe.

Where he would be away from Yugyeom.

Because right now, Yugyeom was too dangerous.

Because right now, Yugyeom was in the mindset to murder if the right trigger presented itself. 

“Hey, let’s take the bike.”

Mark froze, entire body stiffening as he closed the front door behind him and secured that barrier between them and the others to convince himself that at least that single slab of wood was protecting them.

Yuygeom wanted to take the motorcycle. And Mark could remember every vivid detail of the last time somebody had tried to stop their maknae from mounting that metal monster.

He remembered Jaebeom’s bleeding head cradled in his lap as people in phosphorescent jackets converged on them and shouted out random slogans he couldn’t understand.

He didn’t want to end up like that.

“Don’t you want to walk?” he said, hating himself for the tentative tone in his voice. “It’s a really nice day and I’ve got a mask you can borrow …”

“Oh, come no!” Yugyeom interrupted, already jogging up the driveway towards the garage. “I paid an arm and a leg for that thing and I haven’t even gotten the chance to ride it more than once.”

There was a creaking rattle as the huge metal door succumbed to the youngest’s strength. He levered it open with ease, the whisper of sunlight glowing through thick clouds casting a gentle light on the sleek flank of the murderous machine Jackson had insisted be locked away.

Yugyeom gave a low whistle, folding his arms as he surveyed the magnificent creature before him and Mark knew the shivers that were ghosting up his spine weren’t from the wind nipping at the back of his neck.

“It’s gorgeous, don’t you think, hyung?”

“Yeah,” Mark agreed at once, careful to appease and not to anger. “It is. But Gyeom, you still don’t have your license, remember? If a cop pulls you over, you could get in all sorts of trouble.”

Yugyeom just laughed, and Mark wondered when that sound had stopped being music to his ears and had started being terrifying.

“Oh, hyung,” he tutted amusedly. “You need to learn to live a little.”

And with that, he was already astride the leather seat, zipping his jacket right up to his chin and wiggling the helmet on over his hair to shield his face with the impenetrable visor. At least it hid the crazed excitement in his eyes. The look of a man off his meds.

Jackson had left the keys in the ignition. It had been a stupid move, Mark realised now, but at the time they had barely thought about it. And now there was nothing stopping his little brother from screeching off into the distance and painting the roads red with his inner organs.

Nothing but Mark himself.

And if he couldn’t prevent the boy he had sworn all those years ago to protect from throwing his life to the edge then he would at least be there to keep him safe, to tell him when to stop and to call an ambulance if it was needed.

But it wouldn’t come to that. Youngjae and Bambam would call the police, they probably were doing so right now, and they would find them and they would take Yugyeom to the hospital and they would help him.

No one was going to get hurt as long as he kept his cool and stayed calm and didn’t set him off.

When had he become afraid of the little boy he used to hold through the nightmares that their trainee years left them suffering through.

Yugyeom was still that little boy, even if he was locked away somewhere in that addled brain. That’s what Mark had to repeat to himself as he took the second helmet with trembling hands and slid onto the steed’s back with his arms fastened tightly around Yugyeom’s waist.

He was still that little boy. He was still _ his _little boy. He was just a bit sick. That was all. It was still Yugyeom. And so no one was going to get hurt.

Mark wasn’t ashamed to admit that the moment that cylinder of fuel rumbled out a roar and they shot off down the highway with the wind tugging at their clothes and the G-Force instilling a phenomenal burst of adrenaline in their gut, he forgot about the danger of the situation for a split second.

He forgot that motorbikes were dangerous even if the driver did carry a license and wasn’t currently suffering a manic episode, because it felt glorious. He felt freedom, a kind of freedom he couldn’t ever remember experiencing, and the sensation was one that he would associate with flying.

Yugyeom had been right. To ride one of these things was to know what it truly felt to live.

But they were going too fast, and no matter how tightly Mark clung onto the kid’s back, he couldn’t shake the feeling that any minute now, he was going to slip right off that polished metal and splatter his brains up and down the highway.

He tried to call out to Yugyeom, to tell him to slow down, but the wind was too loud and their helmets cushioned their ears too well and Yugyeom was whooping in hysterical glee, one step short of relinquishing his hold on the handle bars and spreading his arms wide to relish in the feeling of the gale on his body.

“Yugyeom!” Mark screamed as they overtook a growling BMW and a car horn blasted over all the noises concocting in his system. “Yugyeom, you have to stop!”

But Yugyeom either couldn’t hear or was ignoring him. He was having the time of his life, but Mark’s euphoria had melted into terror and, suddenly, he was thinking of his mother.

“Yugyeom, please stop!”

They were zooming down some forest road with a steep bank on their left, dotted with trees that would snap them clean in two if they hit with enough force. There was the rushing of a river that would swallow them up and drown them if they rolled that far.

There was a car that took the approaching corner too fast, hurtling towards them at illegal speeds and Mark felt the yelp in Yugyeom’s throat before they were veering to the side so violently that the entire bike keeled over.

Mark had half a second to process what was happening before there was pain on top of pain on top of pain as his leg collided with the road. The bike was still moving, grating against the concrete with a sickening screeching sound, dragging them along with it, and the eldest could literally feel the skin being ripped from his body.

And then there was nothing beneath them and they were falling. The motorbike was gone, destined for a different fate as it abandoned them to theirs. Mark felt every stone, every stick, every mound of earth that crushed his body as he rolled down and down and down and down.

Some part of his mind was screaming _River! River! River! _but he had no means of stopping his descent. He didn’t know where he was, which way was up or what had become of Yugyeom.

All he knew was pain and then cold. Wet and cold and pain. Water seeping through his clothes, lapping at his skin. Too weak to move, to pull himself away from the soft waves that sloshed against him. Pain everywhere. Body leaking blood and tears. Leaves pressed up against his face.

Eyes closing.

Drifting.

Going.

Gone.


	13. A Good Leader

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
"Sign Of The Times" by Superband

Mark awoke in more agony than he had ever felt in his entire existence on this planet. The first thing he registered was the screaming and the next thing he registered was that the screaming was coming from him.

His leg was on fire, burning with a pain that compared to none other. His head was throbbing, his ears were ringing, his heart was in his throat, and all he could think of was Yugyeom.

There were arms around his chest, dragging him across leaves and sticks and logs. The shrubbery jostled his injuries and his throat let out another strangled cry. His entire body was drenched, clothes clinging to goosebumped skin, and his teeth were chattering so violently that he was afraid of biting his tongue.

But all he could think of was Yugyeom.

He tried to call out to the person heaving him out of that river even if he couldn’t open his eyes to see their face. He wanted to tell them to leave him and find his little brother. That Yugyeom was sick and needed help immediately. That now he could be injured and confused and scared even more than he already had been.

He wanted to say all those things but the only sound that came out was a groan as the arms relinquished their hold and he was dropped roughly onto the ground. It was cold. He was so, so cold and even though he was out of the water, his waterlogged shirt and jeans were continuing to lower his body temperature to dangerous levels.

A hand patted his cheek, a little more violently than he would have deemed necessary, but it had the desired affect of jolting him into prying his eyelids apart.

“You’re alive!” came the excited shout from above and the moment the flashing lights had faded from his vision, Mark made out Yugyeom leaning over him.

There was a tiny stream of blood trickling from the kid’s hairline and his cheek was scratched and bruised but other than that, he looked unharmed. He looked completely fine. The helmet must have saved him the worst of the damage, and it was only then that Mark realised his own protective head gear had been removed.

“Gyeom …” he choked out, trying to reach out and fist his fingers in his maknae’s shirt. “Call … C … Call … ambu …”

He couldn’t get the words out. His chest hurt too much. He felt like his lungs were too full, as if something was being pumped through his veins with the malicious intention of suffocating him to death. And he was in so much pain. That was what kept coming back to him. So much pain.

“I thought we were gonna die!” Yugyeom cried, and Mark wanted to sob at the grin stretched across his dongsaeng’s face. “But it was so cool. Oh my God, hyung, it was spectacular, right?”

No. It was not spectacular. It hurt. So badly. It hurt so badly that Mark could no longer tell which part of him was the one in pain. There was something coppery and metallic in his mouth and his gag reflex kicked in, prompting him to let out a hoarse, spasmic cough that spewed blood from between his quivering lips.

“Oh, shit,” came the voice from above and for a brief second, Mark believed Yugyeom had finally realised the severity of the situation and was going to call for help. But then … “Come on, hyung, up you get! We can’t stay here forever!”

His arm was seized and then pulled upwards and Mark couldn’t help the scream that bubbled from his throat. Yugyeom let go at once and the injured limb flopped lifelessly back to the ground, sparked with pins and needles and feeling as though the only thing keeping it attached to his body was a couple of nerves and half a shredded muscle.

“Whoops. Sorry, hyung.”

Why was his voice still so … happy? Mark was in pain. Mark felt like maybe he was dying, and Yugyeom was happy about it?

“Please …” he begged, unaware whether the droplets rolling down the side of his face were tears or blood. “Please … help …”

But Yugyeom didn’t sound like he was listening. Leaves were crunching under his feet as he paced back and forth beside Mark’s convulsing body, happily chatting over his hyung’s laboured breathing and strangled sobs.

“In that moment when I saw the car coming, I really thought I was going to die there,” he was saying, seemingly unaware that his brother was clinging to the edge of consciousness by his fingertips. “But now? Now … I’ve never felt more alive. I feel … Oh my God, hyung, I feel amazing. No. I feel … spectacular!”

He was laughing, high-pitched and delirious. Mark’s head lolled to the side, all muscles in his neck giving up hope, and he realised for the first time that Yugyeom wasn’t as fine as he had first appeared.

One of his shoes were gone, his bare foot scraped and bleeding, but he continued to stomp over the thistles and pinecones as though he felt no pain. He was limping. There was a hole ripped in his jeans just above his left knee and a steadily oozing wound was just visible through the snagged denim.

He was hurt. They were both hurt. But no help was coming. Because Yugyeom wasn’t calling for it and Mark knew that even if he had the strength to reach for his phone, it would have suffered water damage beyond repair.

The last thing he thought before he closed his eyes and allowed that comforting darkness to embrace him was that his dongsaengs were going to blame their maknae for what had happened to him. And he didn’t think he could bear that.

But there was nothing he could do.

****************

“And you didn’t try to stop them?” Jackson was yelling, eyes wide and breathing shallow as he rounded on Bambam and Youngjae, both of whom were huddled on the living room sofa with their heads hung low and their eyes averted in shame. “You just let them walk out of here and take the fucking motorbike?”

“Jackson!” Jinyoung shouted, silencing his friend with a single word from where he was pacing by the window, biting down on the skin around his fingernails and wringing his hands at his sides. “You’re not helping!”

A single tear rolled down Youngjae’s nose as he spoke. “It’s my fault.”

At that simple sentence, Jackson seemed to just melt and he dropped to his knees in front of the kid, taking his hands in his own and squeezing tightly.

“It’s not your fault,” he clarified thickly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just … I’m …”

“Worried,” Bambam finished for him, nodding solemnly without raising his gaze from the floor. “We are, too.”

“I knew he was bipolar,” Youngjae suddenly spewed, voice growing in hysteria until it was almost shrill, and he leapt up from the sofa. Jackson fell back against the coffee table, watching with a mixture of heartbreak and confusion as his dongsaeng scrubbed his hands over his hair.

“Youngjae, we all knew,” Jinyoung tried to soothe but it didn’t seem to be working.

“No!” the kid shouted, and there was desperation evident in the watery glaze over his eyes. “I knew before any of this happened. I knew before the psychiatrist diagnosed him. I even knew before he attacked Jaebeom-hyung!”

Now nobody was interrupting or trying to comfort him. They were too baffled by his words to do anything but wait in silence to see if he would explain his confession.

“I researched it. When he started acting strange, I researched all the things it could be and I knew it was bipolar. I just knew but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want it to be true. I ignored it, I denied it and I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening and when I finally got the balls to tell Jaebeom-hyung, he already had that fucking motorbike. I should have said something sooner!”

There was a ringing silence that followed, stretching out for far too long, before Jinyoung finally spoke. His voice was scratchy and hoarse from all the swallowing he’d been doing to hide his fear but nonetheless, he spoke with all the conviction Youngjae needed to hear in this moment.

“Youngjae,” he started, and he didn’t approach because he knew that wouldn’t help. He just turned to face him with his hands held out in case the kid ever wanted to initiate contact. “Bipolar disorder … it’s genetic. It was probably always inside of him and it just took the trauma of losing his parents to bring it out. There was absolutely nothing you could have done that would’ve changed anything.”

He expected Youngjae to crack at his words, to burst into tears and admit that he was just terrified at the thought of not knowing where his members were, but instead, the boy planted his feet firmly on the floor and spat with all the self-hatred he could muster:

“I could have stopped him from taking Mark-hyung.”

Before anyone could think up an appropriate response to such a guilt-laden statement, the door opened and Jaebeom walked in. His face was pale, lips practically colourless, and his knuckles were white from clenching at the phone in his hand so tightly.

He seemed to drink in the atmosphere. He saw the tears on Youngjae’s face, the stiffness in Bambam’s shoulders, the resignation in Jackson’s posture and the desperation in Jinyoung’s eyes. He registered all of it in a matter of seconds, just like a leader should, and he did everything in his power to make it okay again.

“The police are out looking,” he said, firm and resolute, to show them that at least one of them was in control. “They’ve already checked police stations and hospitals and there’s no sign of Mark-hyung or Yugyeom so that’s good news. Manager-hyung spoke to Gyeom’s psychiatrist and she said that he must have stopped taking his meds several weeks ago to have relapsed like this.”

There was a collective deflation of guilt. They had stopped policing his intake, wanting to give him his control back and trusting him to take his own medication responsibly. They hadn’t been the hyungs they should have been and none of them had realised he was spiralling.

“But,” Jaebeom continued, still determined to give them a sliver of hope. “She says that the therapy he’s been doing with her has been really successful. She doesn’t think he’ll get violent again so Mark-hyung … should be safe.”

Should be. He wished he could give them more than ‘should be’. ‘Should be’ wasn’t as good as ‘will be’. It wasn’t as comforting or as reassuring. But good leaders didn’t lie in times like that. Good leaders told it how it was because every member of this family was an adult and therefore should be trusted with all the information.

Good leaders didn’t lie.

Jaebeom sometimes wished he didn’t have to be a good leader.


	14. Mark-Hyung

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
"Voices" by Stray Kids

Yugyeom had no idea how long it took between the moment he staggered to his feet after the crash and the moment he began to feel pain. 

It started as a dull ache that slowly persisted as he paced, mind whirring at the speed of a racing car as he took in all that surrounded him.

Trees stood tall. So, so, so tall. Really tall. And the water was gushing so, so loudly. The flowers blooming in gentle clusters at the foot of trunks and against the bank were so, so, so, so, so beautiful. 

And everything was just … spectacular.

It didn’t matter that his nose was sourcing blood, his cheek was throbbing and already starting to swell and his left leg was trembling every time he put weight on it. 

None of that mattered because this universe was spectacular and, in this moment, where it was surrounding him and hugging him and embracing him, he was so unbelievably alive.

He looked down at Mark on the ground, halfway through his garble and frowned slightly at the sudden silence his hyung had lapsed into. 

A minute ago, he had been making strange gurgling noises that Yugyeom had, if he was being honest, found slightly annoying. At least he wasn’t doing that anymore.

But the kid wanted to share in this euphoria with his big brother. He didn’t want Mark to sleep through these precious moments where nature was inside of him.

So he wandered over and nudged the motionless body with his toe.

“Hyung!” he called out, kicking a little harder when there was no response. “Hyung, wake up!”

And for the first time, he registered that the substance on Mark’s face and chest and hands arms and legs and … everywhere … was not mud or paint or anything innocent and harmless like that. 

It was blood. Scarlet and vibrant against skin that was paler than paper, and somewhere in the depths of Yugyeom’s mind, alarms went off.

“Hyung?” he asked, a little more tentatively, but Mark remained silent.

The eldest wasn’t shivering like he had been when Yugyeom pulled him from the river, so at least that was a good thing.

He was probably just resting, getting over the shock of falling into the water like that. He would wake up in a moment. Right?

“Hyung, it’s not funny anymore!” he shouted, and now there was uncertainty in his gut. Mark didn’t usually play jokes that lasted this long. He was too impatient, too desperate to see the outcome. “Hyung, wake up!”

But he wasn’t waking up.

“Oh,” Yugyeom muttered to himself, stumbling backwards a few paces as he took in the true extent of the damage that had been done. 

The leaves surrounding Mark were tainted crimson, as though he were lying on a bloodied platter, and as he looked closer, he saw a leg that was mangled beyond recognition. 

“Oh.”

He should get someone. That’s what he should do. He should find someone who would be able to wake his hyung up and give him some painkillers or something like that to get him back on his feet.

“I’m going to get help, hyung,” he announced awkwardly. “Just … Stay here. Okay? Yeah … Just stay here …”

He set off at a pleasurable amble, still pausing to take in the scenic beauty Mother Nature had constructed just for his eyes, because there was no need to hurry. 

Mark was fine. He was just sleeping off a few bruises and a twisted ankle. Yugyeom didn’t need to be panicking because panicking had never done anyone any good.

A squirrel scampered across his path and he followed it for a little while, watching it dodging backwards and forwards in search for acorns or nuts until it finally dug its tiny little claws into the shaft of a tree and whizzed up into the branches.

Yugyeom’s back was itching. His chest, too. He glanced down and saw that his shirt was stained scarlet, muttering curses as he registered the tears in the material that would mean his favourite garment was beyond repair. So he removed it.

He pulled the sticky collection of fibres off his body and tossed it to the side before continuing on his trek.

The wind nipped at his bare skin and he could feel goosebumps pricking his arms but he didn’t mind. It was just another reminder of how at one with nature he was.

One of his shoes was missing, he realised for the first time, and it was obviously ridiculous to walk around with one shoe. He kicked the other off and abandoned it in a mole hill. 

He loved the sensation of leaves crunching beneath his exposed soles. It was such a fresh and crisp sound he had always associated with his favourite season.

At some point, he remembered that he had to do something. Something important. But then he saw a deer stalking elegantly through the undergrowth on the other side of the river and as he crouched down behind a tree to watch it lapping at the water, whatever mission he’d set out to accomplish was forgotten.

He could no longer feel his feet but it didn’t matter because everything was beautiful. His fingers wouldn’t move at his command but it didn’t matter because everything was perfect.

He couldn’t remember how he got here or where ‘here’ was or what he was supposed to be doing or even what his name had been before he had decided to become one with the forest but none of that was worth anything.

Because he felt spectacular.

“Mark-hyung,” his mouth sputtered out and he wondered where the words had come from or why he was uttering them but they felt vaguely important. “Mark-hyung … Mark-hyung …”

A dog barked somewhere off to the right and he whipped around, foot crunching painfully on a particularly sharp twig, to see a woman in a thick white coat with a bobble hat pulled tightly over her ears staring back at him.

She looked afraid and the hound at her heels was cocking its head to the side in confusion at this bizarre creature wandering half-naked through the woods in the middle of autumn.

“Mark-hyung!” he called out, gesturing with his hands to show her how important his message was. “Mark-hyung!”

He took a step forwards and she stumbled back, holding up her arms in a signal of surrender before she fumbled with the phone in her hand and started running back up the bank with the dog galloping in her wake.

“Mark-hyung …” Yugyeom repeated, feeling slightly dejected at the unkind encounter. “Mark-hyung … Mark-hyung … Mark-hyung …”

When had the sun gone down? When had the darkness rolled in and the temperature dropped below freezing? When had all those beautiful flowers become shrouded in shadow and the river blackened from a sparkling transparent ribbon to a streak of thick black tar? 

It was cold. He didn’t like the cold.

Mark didn’t like the cold either.

*********************

Jaebeom awoke with a terrified jerk as his ringtone cut through the silence like a musical whipcrack.

Youngjae groaned from where he’d been resting in his leader’s lap, disgruntled as his slumber was disturbed, but Jaebeom felt no guilt as he turfed the younger off him and lunged for the device.

The others had started to rouse from the various positions of unconsciousness they had lapsed into while waiting for news and by the time Jaebeom had managed to fumble with the answer button, they were all wide-eyed and alert.

“Im Jaebeom?”

“Yes, speaking.”

He held his breath, begging for some kind of news. Anything. Even if they were in a hospital or a prison cell, he needed to know they were breathing and existing and hadn’t disappeared into the void that was the outside world.

“Seoul General Hospital has reported taking an admission that matches Kim Yugyeom’s description.”

“Oh, thank God,” Jaebeom breathed, clutching at his chest just to convince his heart that it could continue beating again. He raised his head and relayed the news to the others, watching them split into broad grins of their own. “Is he … Is he alright? Was Mark with him? Mark Tuan?”

“I’m afraid not. We still have officers out searching for your other friend but there is no sighting as of yet.”

The world seemed to sink in that moment and he didn’t know whether he should still feel relieved that Yugyeom was safe and cared for or whether he was allowed to permit the terror to take hold as he realised Mark was still missing. Still out there.

What if Yugyeom had hurt him? What if he had been so out of control that he’d killed their hyung and left him somewhere? 

Jaebeom didn’t even want to think about his maknae in that kind of light but fear did something to you. It twisted your perceptions of the people you loved and convinced you that they could be capable of true evil.

“I think it would be a good idea if you came to the hospital, Mr Im,” the voice on the other end of the line continued and Jaebeom had to remind himself to return to reality. “Kim Yugyeom is severely disorientated, has sustained several injuries that vary in severity and is quite dangerously hypothermic. He needs a support system around him.”

“Okay,” Jaebeom finally managed to choke out and the call was ended from the other side before he could ask anything else.

The happiness that had blossomed throughout the room at the news of Yugyeom’s recovery was now black and dim as everybody tried to read the expression on their leader’s face and the reason behind it.

“Jae …” Jinyoung started and his soft yet commanding voice was enough to steel Jaebeom back into his role as protector and assurer.

“Yugyeom’s got hypothermia,” he reported, clearing his throat so that it wouldn’t portray the build of phlegm he had in his oesophagus. “He’s confused and disorientated and they want us there to make sure he stays as calm as possible.”

“But …?” Jackson prompted nervously.

“Mark-hyung wasn’t with him.”


	15. 7%

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go after this! Thank you for everything!
> 
> Song Recommendation:  
"Fear" by Seventeen

Jackson, Jinyoung and Youngjae had gone out to join the search party, either too worried about Mark to focus on anything else or too guilt-stricken at their own mistakes to look Yugyeom in the eye, so it was just Jaebeom and Bambam the doctor addressed in the hospital corridor.

“Yugyeom-ssi sustained injuries consistent with a road traffic collision.”

“The motorbike …” Jaebeom muttered as he raked his fingers through his hair with a sigh of frustrated guilt. “He was driving a motorbike. He didn’t have a license, he shouldn’t have even had it.”

“That would make sense,” the doctor said, smiling kindly to try and soothe their panic. “He has multiple abrasions to his face, arms and legs, a sprained ankle and a hairline fracture to his cheekbone. It sounds worse than it is but considering how dangerous motorcycle accidents can be, he was extremely lucky.”

Bambam and Jaebeom just nodded their understanding, begging her to go on without being able to form the pleas themselves.

“A dogwalker spotted him wandering barefoot and shirtless in the woods and called the police. By the time he got here, he was hypothermic and very confused. He kept repeating the name ‘Mark’ among various other mismatched phrases but we were unable to get anything coherent out of him that may point us to where your friend might be.”

Jaebeom’s breath hitched in his throat and he hated it. 

He hated that he hadn’t been there when the maknaes had needed him, he hated that he hadn’t noticed Yugyeom had stopped taking his medication and he hated that he had been such a useless leader. 

He hated everything.

“Is he going to be okay?” came Bambam’s timid question.

“Yes, I believe so,” the doctor confirmed, reaching out a comforting hand to squeeze the younger boy’s shoulder. “We’ve treated the lacerations but none of them are too serious and we’ve fitted him with an IV that will help raise his body temperature but we are unsure if sedating him would be the best decision. He is very agitated but considering the hypothermia, putting him to sleep may do more harm than good.”

Jaebeom tried to convince himself that when he walked through that door, the image he was going to see was not as bad as the one his imagination had cooked up on their way to the hospital. 

Yugyeom would just be wrapped in a fluffy comforter with tousled hair and a few scratches on his face and they would calmly ask him where Mark was and he would tell them.

But the second he set foot in that room, he knew he had been wrong.

Yugyeom was sitting up in the bed, layered in blankets and wrapped in a thin sheet of green material that was clearly intended to preserve body heat. 

There were a couple of cuts on his face that had been pinned together with little white strips, his right wrist was dressed and his left leg sat elevated on a pillow with his bandaged foot wiggling anxiously.

He seemed to be mumbling something under his breath but Jaebeom couldn’t differentiate any words until he was right next to the bed and reaching out to take Yugyeom’s hand.

“Mark-hyung …”

His gut clenched as he leant down in the hopes of lowering himself into the kid’s line of sight and whispered as urgently and yet as gently as he could, “Gyeom, where is Mark-hyung?”

“Mark-hyung …” Yugyeom responded instantly, as though it was obvious, but he still wasn’t looking at his friends situated either side of the bed. “Mark-hyung … Mark-hyung’s hurt … He was bleeding …”

“Where is Mark-hyung?” Jaebeom repeated, feeling his heartrate beginning to rise at Yugyeom’s words. “Please, Gyeom, tell us where hyung is and we can help him.”

“Mark-hyung … Mark-hyung went to sleep …”

Oh, God.

“Where, Yugyeom?” Jaebeom begged, feeling tears prick his own eyes as he saw Bambam hovering uselessly to the side, unsure of what to do, what to say or how to help. “Where’s Mark-hyung, Yugyeom? We need to find him.”

The thought of Mark lying somewhere, bleeding, injured, losing consciousness, was driving him insane and he was just short of throttling Yugyeom to get the answer out of his delirious and battered body. 

He wasn’t proud of it but he was panicking and willing to do anything if it meant getting Mark back.

“Mark-hyung went to sleep …”

“I know, Yugyeom, but where?” Jaebeom shouted, lurching forwards to fasten his hands on Yugyeom’s wrists before he was pulled back by a nurse.

“That’s enough,” she ordered curtly. “Your friend is sick. He’s confused and yelling at him isn’t going to help anybody.”

Jaebeom hissed in frustration, spinning around and clutching at his hair as he tried to stop the fear from sinking its fangs into his body and rendering him completely useless. 

He knew Yugyeom was ill and disorientated and hurt. He knew that all too well. But at least he was safe. 

At least they knew where he was and he was surrounded by people who were helping him. Mark had none of that. Mark was out there somewhere, alone, hurt and, by the sound of it, unconscious. Or worse.

If that motorbike had crashed like the doctor suspected then their eldest hyung could be horrifically injured. He could be paralysed. His legs could be broken. His neck could have snapped. His brain could be bleeding. 

There were so many possibilities and each one of them had a terrifying likelihood of being true.

And there was nothing he could do about it.

********************

“Jackson?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think what Youngjae said is true?”

Jackson glanced sideways, taking his attention off the road for a split second to see Jinyoung’s worried expression before looking back out through the windshield. 

They had been searching for hours, making regular stops to check in on how Yugyeom was doing at the hospital and throwing fits of rage when they still had nothing to go on.

Youngjae had broken down a while ago, sinking to his knees in the middle of the road and bursting into tears as he wailed about how everything was his fault. 

One of the management members who’d been helping them look had needed to take him back home, but now it was clear that watching his dongsaeng act like that had done something to Jinyoung.

“Do you think we could have stopped all this?”

Jackson remained silent for a few more moments, carefully considering his options before he replied with his jaw set and his voice strained from all the yelling they’d been doing in their desperate hunt for Mark.

“I think we could have been better hyungs,” he clarified and ignored the way Jinyoung seemed to sigh in agreement beside him. “I think we should have reacted differently when Jaebeom got hurt so that he didn’t assume we hated him. I think we should have checked on him more often to make sure he was taking his meds. I think we could have been more attentive and I think we didn’t do enough.”

Another pause.

“But I don’t think any of us are to blame.”

Jinyoung looked up sharply at those words and Jackson didn’t need to meet his gaze to know he was confused.

“The world is fucked up, Jinyoung. There are so many things that happen that we try to blame ourselves for when there was no way we could have known what the consequences would be. I don’t know about you but before Gyeom was diagnosed, I’d never even heard of the word ‘bipolar’. I did some research but there's only so much the internet can tell you. I think that …”

“STOP!”

Such was the intensity of Jinyoung’s scream that Jackson slammed his foot on the brake without a second thought. 

His body reacted instinctively and the car screeched to a bone-shattering halt, sending both of them slamming into the dashboard.

“What the fuck, Jinyoung?” Jackson yelled but Jinyoung was already scrambling out of the car, and the elder saw no other option than to follow suit. “What’s going on?”

He rounded the hood and immediately felt his blood run cold at the sight of the motorbike – Yugyeom’s motorbike – lying on its side, half concealed by the bush it had slid into. 

The metal along its flank was scratched and the paint had been shredded off, one of the wheels misshapen and an exhaust pipe bent grotesquely.

“Oh, God …”

Jinyoung was already stumbling down the embankment by the time Jackson came to his senses and made after him with his heart thudding at the speed of light and his mind repeating the same pleading mantra.

Then he heard the scream.

“NO!”

He raised his head from where his gaze had been firmly locked on his feet to ensure he didn’t slip and fall, and saw Jinyoung skidding to his knees in the mud that lined the riverbed. 

He was bowing over something with his hands hovering uselessly above it as though he were terrified to touch whatever it was.

Jackson got closer and finally differentiated the blood-smeared face, the mangled limbs, the hair tinted with scarlet, and the skin that was colourless. And then he mimicked Jinyoung’s cry, but this time at a whisper.

“No …”

He joined them on the ground – Jinyoung and Mark – and watched with helpless desperation as the younger fumbled for a pulse beneath a jaw that was hanging open, blood trickling from between blue lips. 

He reached out for the prone body, resting his hand atop Mark’s chest and praying to feel the thud of an organ behind a ribcage.

He didn’t.

“He’s not breathing!” Jinyoung cried, tears starting to slip down his nose as he layered his hands on top of his hyung’s heart and started pumping. “He’s not breathing, Jackson, he’s not breathing!”

Jackson was already calling an ambulance, screaming over the sound of Jinyoung’s sobs and the gentle crunch of Mark’s ribs giving beneath the pressure of CPR. 

His mind was spewing all the information he’d ever heard about cases of flatline but one fact seemed to be repeating itself louder than all the others.

Only 7% of people who went into cardiac arrest outside of a hospital survived. 


	16. Bipolar Opposites

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last hurrah! Here we go …
> 
> Song Recommendation:  
"Rainfall" by Chen (EXO)
> 
> Drama Recommendation:  
"Exo Next Door"

Yugyeom opened his eyes and the first thing he felt was heaviness. Like every part of his body was stuffed with cotton wool and weighing him down in a way that was somehow still blissful and painless and … nice.

He recognised the familiar surroundings of a hospital room and his mind briefly wondered what had led him to arrive in such a place before he dismissed the thought and moved on to far more pressing issues.

Like the itchiness of his nose.

Reaching up, his fingers were uncoordinated and he frowned stupidly as they groped at thin air for several moments before finally finding their mark on his face, nails dismissing the tickling sensation he so detested.

“Gyeom?”

His eyes rolled to the side, head too heavy to move just yet, and he took in the sight of Bambam perched on the very edge of a chair beside him, eyes wide and worried and hands nervously jittering over the bedsheets, as though he wasn’t quite sure whether touching the patient was allowed.

“Hmm,” Yugyeom hummed in response, knowing that if he tried to speak, his words would come out slurred but he went for it anyway. “Wha … happ…?”

He was too groggy to register the tears in Bambam’s eyes as he glanced up at someone Yugyeom couldn’t see, seemingly begging whoever it was to step in and answer the question so that he wouldn’t have to.

And a moment later, Jaebeom slid into view, pale and pasty and looking as though he were about to vomit at any given moment.

“You stopped taking your meds, Gyeom,” he filled in, sinking onto the edge of the bed and curling his hands in his lap. “And then you were in a motorcycle accident. You’re not badly hurt – just a few cuts and bruises and a sprained ankle – but you got really cold and …”

He petered off and Yugyeom just frowned up at him, wracking his brains as he tried to remember any of those details his leader had just explained. But he had no recollection of a crash or of feeling cold or of going off his …

Oh.

Oh, shit.

“Mar … hyun …” he slurred clumsily, frantically battling with the bedsheets in his desperation to climb out of bed. “Mark … Mark!”

Both Jaebeom and Bambam leapt forwards, their fingers tightening on his hands and shoulders, gently pushing him back against the pillows. He could tell it wasn’t much of a struggle. He must have been so weak.

“We know, Gyeom,” Jaebeom called out over the sound of his maknae’s hyperventilation. “We know about Mark-hyung.”

But Yugyeom could see they were crying. Both of them. Crying buckets and buckets and buckets. And if Mark was fine then why wasn’t he here, sitting at his little brother’s bedside so Yugyeom could spew apologies like there was no fucking tomorrow?

Was Mark dead? Had he died in that crash? Had Yugyeom killed him with his reckless and stupid driving and his equally reckless and stupid refusal to take his medication? Had he gone one step further than assaulting Jaebeom?

Had he murdered Mark?

There were other people in the room now. People in blue and white who were ushering Bambam and Jaebeom away from the bed. Away from him. Their fingers slid from his hands and he cried out in protest, grasping at thin air in an attempt to hold on, but then they were gone.

And the heaviness was back. Building. Building. Building. Worsening. Worsening. Worsening.

And then he was gone again.

*******************

Jaebeom turned away as they drugged his little brother into unconsciousness, snaking an arm around Bambam’s shoulders and pulling him against his chest so that he, too, would have an excuse to hide his face.

Yugyeom finally lost his battle, the incoherent cries of anguish dribbling into nothing and the soft thuds of his feet against the mattress stopping altogether, and Jaebeom wanted to throw up.

He’d known this was going to be difficult, but nothing could have prepared him for that.

“I need to go,” came Bambam’s whimper, muffled by his leader’s shirt, and Jaebeom nodded.

“Then let’s go.”

They broke into a sprint. Both of them. Side by side. Not even hesitating when they almost ran over a nurse with a trolley of pills and syringes. Not even bothering to check what had happened to the trash can they knocked over in their frantic desperation.

The only reason they’d been in that room was so that Yugyeom wouldn’t have to wake up alone, and now they had the assurance that he would be drugged for at least another few hours, they could return to where they _ really _needed to be.

Jackson, Jinyoung and Youngjae were standing at the huge rectangular window cut into the hospital room wall, their faces white as paper and their fingers curled into fists at their sides as they watched.

Jackson was the only one who wasn’t crying, but he definitely was not far off.

“Anything?” Jaebeom panted, screeching to a stop beside them and turning to face the same direction, tightening his grip on Bambam’s wrist. “Is there any change?”

“Nothing,” Jackson ground out through gritted teeth, hands braced against the windowsill and shoulders hunched.

Beyond that pane of glass was Mark, laid out like a paper figurine on the hospital gurney, wrapped in that dark green tarp that was supposed to preserve body warmth but still with his bare chest on full display as a nurse shattered his ribs with the pressure of CPR.

“How long has it been?” Bambam squeaked, finding Jaebeom’s fingers and squeezing as hard as possible. “How long’s he been down for?”

Jinyoung checked his watch, trying to swat the tears from his face but only succeeding in smearing them over his cheeks, “At least 34 minutes.”

“And how many minutes is it until brain damage?”

“40.”

Jaebeom’s stomach gave a disgustingly violent lurch.

Mark had six minutes left. Six minutes to get his stupid-ass heart in gear and start breathing or else he would be nothing but a vegetable, destined to remain comatose and unresponsive until they finally decided to turn off the life support machine.

Six minutes. That was it. Six minutes until the end of the world.

Because Jaebeom wouldn’t be able to hold this group together if Mark died. There was no way he would ever manage to pull their shattered fragments into one incomplete picture and force them to perform, to act, to sing like they used to. It just wasn’t possible.

And Im Jaebeom loathed himself to the very core as the thought crossed his mind, but he couldn’t deny it, no matter how badly he may want to.

If Mark died, he would blame Yugyeom.

And he wasn’t sure he would be able to handle that either.

So Mark had to live. Not just for himself, but for them as well. Mark had to live or the rest of them would die. Maybe not physically, but emotionally and figuratively and in every other way that mattered.

But most importantly, Mark had to live or Yugyeom wouldn’t have the support system he needed to claw his way back into a mind that no longer played deadly tricks on a body that was too weak to resist.

Mark had to live.

For Yugyeom.

“Wait!” Youngjae’s shout ripped Jaebeom from his internal monologue with all the force of a speeding car. “I … That’s a …!”

He was pointing at something through the window and Jaebeom tried to follow the path of his fingertip but there was too much movement going on in the room within, too many people blocking the sight he needed to see to convince himself that Youngjae might just be right.

“What? What is it?”

“That’s a heartbeat! Mark-hyung has a heartbeat!”

*****************

“You ready?” Jaebeom said to the boy in the wheelchair, crouching down in front of him and reaching out to take his hands. “If you think this is going to upset you then we can come back another time.”

Yugyeom shook his head, looking up at the final barrier between him and his eldest hyung. 

He wanted to do this. He wanted to see Mark and the damage that had been done to him. 

For almost a week now, he had been confined to his own room, heavily medicated to soothe his mania, and he wanted to be with his brother so badly.

“Okay, Gyeom,” Jaebeom murmured, leaning forwards to plant a kiss on Yugyeom’s forehead before straightening up and circling around to the back of the wheelchair so he could push the two of them through the door. “Remember that it looks more serious than it is.”

The second his eyes rested on the sight that lay before him, Yugyeom wanted to leap out of this metal contraption and run to Mark’s side, throw himself on the bed and sob apology after apology after apology into his chest, but his sprained ankle wouldn’t permit such a thing and he wasn’t sure he would be able to stand through the dizziness anyway.

Youngjae and Jackson were beside the bed, their expressions soft and comforting in the hopes that it would make Yugyeom feel welcome in this place where it didn’t seem that ‘welcoming’ was an atmosphere that belonged.

Mark looked peaceful. If it weren’t for the plastic cylinder protruding at a wonky angle from his mouth and the stitches that arched over his eyebrow, he would have looked like he was sleeping. The heart monitor displayed a steady rhythm and the gentle sucking of the intubation tube proved to Yugyeom that he was still breathing.

He was still Mark. His leg may have been shattered so grotesquely that he had needed pins to be drilled into his bones and his rib cage may have collapsed in on itself to puncture both his lungs, but he was still Mark. And for now, that was enough.

“The doctors are going to take him off sedation this afternoon,” Jaebeom said as he wheeled Yugyeom closer to the bed, Youngjae getting up and moving so the youngest had more room. “That means he should wake up in the next few days.”

Yugyeom reached out to take the spindly hand embedded with an IV, almost scared to touch the one part of his hyung that seemed to have been unblemished by the motorcycle crash he had caused.

“He was legally dead for almost an hour,” Youngjae murmured as he took a seat on the end of the mattress, thumb stroking over Mark’s ankle through the blankets – the one that wasn’t encased in plaster and embedded with metal rods. “But they said it was the hypothermia that saved him.”

He smiled sadly at the way Yugyeom looked at him with bewilderment and guilt.

“When the body gets too cold, it shuts down everything in order to protect itself. His heart stopped so the bleeding stopped too and once they’d got his temperature back up, they were able to bring him back. It’s … They said it was a miracle.”

Yugyeom nodded absently, looking down at the hand he held as if it was made of glass and almost screeching when he felt a finger twitch. His head shot up in the direction of Jackson on the other side of the bed but his hyung just smiled at him.

“He’s been doing that a lot lately,” he explained fondly, reaching up to stroke at Mark’s hair. “He’s saying ‘hello’, Gyeom. He’s saying he’s missed you.”

“I missed you too, hyung,” Yugyeom whispered, giving the papery fingers as strong a squeeze as he dared considering their fragility and shedding a fresh wave of tears when he thought he felt Mark squeeze back. “I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I’m so, so sorry, hyung.”

Another twitch.

“He wants you to shut up,” Jaebeom said and the four of them shared a weak chuckle. “You tell him, hyung. You tell him it wasn’t his fault. You tell him that none of us love him any less because he wasn’t in his right mind and he was sick. And you tell him, hyung, that it was just as much your fault for agreeing to go with him in the first place.”

Yugyeom just cried harder. But not from guilt.

Jinyoung and Bambam had sat him down a few days after he’d started responding to the mood stabilisers and told him that guilt was useless. What happened had happened but Mark was safe and that was all that mattered. It had taken a lot longer for the youngest to accept that but the time had come eventually.

So he felt no guilt anymore, rather just despair for this condition he would likely battle for the rest of his life. There would be hurdles and setbacks and slipups and times when it would seem like the world was coming to an end and there was nothing he could do to prevent that.

“But we’ll be here,” Youngjae said, and Yugyeom realised he’d spoken aloud. “We won’t know how you feel and we won’t know how hard it will be for you but we’ll always be here. And we’ve made the mistakes so now we know how to do this. We’ll look after you better than we have before now and if something goes wrong then we will deal with it. Okay, Gyeom?”

Yugyeom looked around him and registered for the first time that, at some point, Bambam and Jinyoung had appeared to join them. They were each watching him, not nodding or shaking their heads or saying a word, but just letting him know that they agreed and they were there and that everything was going to be alright.

“Do you believe him, Yugyeom?” Jinyoung asked tentatively, and for the first time in a long time, Yugyeom didn’t feel obliged to lie.

“Yes.”

Mark’s eyelid twitched and even though Yugyeom knew it had nothing to do with the conversation going on around him, that it was just a muscle reaction in their hyung’s slow climb to the surface, he felt like Mark was joining in. Was telling him that he believed in him.

Was telling him that even though he may have two sides of himself – complete opposites of each other … his bipolar opposites – he would love him no matter what. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for all the comments and everything! You're the best and I love you all! I'm posting a SEVENTEEN fic next named "Coming Clean" so let me know which member you want me to write for to follow Yugyeom in this series! 
> 
> Let's fight stigma against mental health together!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos really help with my motivation and confidence so if you have a spare minute, let me know what you think! Have a great day!
> 
> Also, a special shout-out to my baby Juno and my medical advisor Haru. Couldn't do any of this without you guys!


End file.
